I learned this technique from the fixing dinner program on Food Network. It looked very time consuming and complicated at the beginning but then after a few times, it gets so easy that I can't imagine how cooking was like before this.
Here is the thing. You just pick 7 meals, the program says 5 meals and leaves two nights for take out or left over, but I cook the whole week. So I list my 7 meals on a paper, and all the ingredients categorized by type (e.g. produce, meat, dairy