It's 6 o'clock in the morning and you hear your alarm go off on your phone. You reach over still half asleep and turn it off. 45 minutes go by and you spring from your bed to look at your watch. The time is now 6:45 and you have to be out the door in 45 minutes. You quickly hop in the shower as you yell at your son to get out of bed. You scramble around frantically trying to find a shirt to wear when you realize your son is still sleeping. You pull him from the bed and beg him to put on some clothes. You have no time to blow dry your hair so you slap it into a quick ponytail and run over to make a quick cup of coffee. The time is now 6:45 and you are still helping your son put his shoes on, you have had no time to get breakfast, and your house is a disaster. Sound familiar?
This was and still sometimes is my morning routine. When mornings start off with frantic scrambling, yelling demands, and no breakfast it makes for a very long day. I am a true believer that your morning routine sets the tone for the rest of the day, so I am doing things that are completely changing how I start my mornings. Trust me, you don't want to mess with me when I am hangry (yes, I spelled that right). You know when you are mad at the world and everything in it just because you are hungry. When I don't eat by 9am you will see my hangry face, so skipping breakfast is something that just can't happen.
If you think about all of the things you try to accomplish in the morning like packing the kid's lunch, making breakfast, and looking for an outfit to wear you will realize that a lot of this stuff can be done the night before. Here are some things that I make a habit of doing the night before to make my mornings less cram-packed & more peaceful.
PICK OUT TOMORROW'S OUTFIT
This may seem just silly, but I will tell you from experience this saves a lot of time for me in the morning. If you have a job like I do where you have to wear a certain dress code, just walking into your closet to pick out an outfit is harder said than done. You can't just pick any random shirt or ripped up pair of jeans, so planning your outfit out ahead of time saves you from trying to make a fashion statement with one sleepy eye open {this is how you walk out the door with two different pairs of shoes on}.
Get super organized and start planning your outfits out for the whole week on Sunday. This will save you time in the morning and it will also be one less thing you have to worry about at night. The thing that has helped me stick with this new habit is having a designated space for my week's worth of outfits. For some reason, I feel a sense of accomplishment when I see all 5 outfits hanging up, and it relieves stress to see that I won't have to worry about it for an entire week. I currently hang them on a towel bar my husband hung up for me in the closet, it doesn't take up a lot of room, and it was an affordable purchase.
PREPARE FOOD THE NIGHT BEFORE
Ok, so there are two main meals I try to have prepared the night before – breakfast & lunch. If you are like me, just having some toast with some butter and a cup of coffee might suffice. But can you imagine eating only that for the entire month? No thanks. There are a ton of great things I have discovered that allow me to make breakfast at night, yet still give me some variety.
Smoothies are a great choice because the options are really endless and they are actually pretty filling. Plus you can make them as healthy as you would like – I prefer mine with a cup of sugar. The greatest benefit to smoothies is that you can make about 30 of them and just stick them in the freezer – there is another thing you don't have to worry about the night before. I have also been on a fruit kick lately and have been cutting up enough fruit at night to last about a week. It's something quick to grab and makes for a great morning snack.
The main thing I do to have my lunch prepared the night before is to make extra dinner. I make enough for my family to eat and enough for two other people. When I clean up the kitchen after dinner, I prepare two portions of leftovers to bring to lunch the next day {and one for my husband of course}. This also saves money since we are not eating out nearly as often.
GET UP EARLIER
I am not talking about trying to get up 2 hours earlier, but literally only a half hour. You will be surprised what an extra 1/2 hour of quiet time can do for your mental health. I have a 3-year-old, so I call this time “my quiet time.” It's my time to actually sit down and just think without my son saying “mommy, mommy, mommy” every 5 minutes. I think about this blog, what I want to accomplish for the day, and really use this time to mentally prepare for the day's upcoming challenges. There are a ton of benefits for getting up earlier, and if I can do it so can you! If you are not an early bird, try turning off the snooze feature on your alarm, go to bed earlier, or put your alarm clock far enough from the bed that you are forced to walk over to it.
- Productivity: The more days I get up earlier, the more I start to realize that this is when I am the most productive. On top of using this as my quiet time, I also use this time to work on my blog. I do brainstorming sessions and do a huge chunk of my writing in the morning. I feel like things come to me easier, and the big picture that I am trying to achieve is a lot clearer. This allows me to spend most of the evening with my family and touch up on some small things when they go to bed. If I didn't utilize my morning time, I probably wouldn't have had the energy or the brain to finish this blog post.
- Greet the day with gratitude: It's a wonderful feeling to get up and actually have time to just reflect on all of your blessings. With my busy life, sometimes finding the time to just sit and be thankful can be hard. I love to greet the day with a great attitude, think about all of the wonderful things in my life, and have a moment to say “Today I am going to do the best I can, have a kind attitude, and take charge of my goals”.
The morning hours are truly the most peaceful and I would hate for you to miss out. Use this time to write, read, walk, exercise, or to just sit there and think. Use your extra 1/2 hour for you and really allow yourself to have the best day possible.
