It is only August, but if you’re like me, you are already preparing for the bell to ring and school to be back in session. The lazy days of summer will soon be a distant memory replaced by the crazy mornings of fall. And for most of us this means the thermometer is dropping and our blood pressure is rising.
Why is it that weekday mornings are so hectic? Why do we feel like we have worked 10 hours by 9AM? Why do we run into the same time sucks each and every day? Help is on the way! Mornings don’t have to be difficult. With a few simple tips, tricks and preparations, the morning can pass by without a single yell or scream.
In our house, the day starts early during the school year. My daughter, Lucy, is going into 4th grade and knows that the routine is the routine. We stick to it to get out the door and make sure everyone is where they need to be on time. We rely on three fundamental rules to make this happen:
1. Prep – Get stuff done and out of the way the night before
2. Prioritize – Get done what you must before you do what you want
3. Proxy (or Delegation) – Everyone has a job
In talking to hundreds of women, I have found that these are fairly universal concepts when it comes to saving time and energy in the morning.
Prep
Getting things done when you have the time to do them is a great way to remove the stress from the AM routine.
April at It’s All About Balance does as much as she can the night before. Her rule is that, "homework isn't done until it's put away" so in the morning, her girls just pick up their backpacks and go. The night before, April also picks out her younger daughter's clothes and her own clothes, makes lunches, and makes sure anything she needs for the next day is right next to the front door.
Brenda at Cozy Little House has a mail box system Each person in the family has their own box or bin by the door to keep everything that "goes with you tomorrow.”
Kristia at Family Balance Sheet, makes breakfast a breeze by keeping grab and go breakfast food on hand, like cheese sticks, hard-boiled eggs, yogurt tubes and bananas for those really hectic mornings where there is no time to sit and eat.
A bit of weekend prep can also help you out during the week. Katie from Sew Woodsy says, “I prepare all of the fruit for lunch, and anything else that I can pre-portion out to make life a little easier in the morning (like cookies, chips, salsa, pasta salads, etc) on Sunday night.”
Prioritize
Time sucks can get in the way of getting you to where you need to be in the morning. Focus in the AM is a key to success.
Having a plan and sticking to it is a critical component of getting the morning off to a good start. Laura of iGriza makes prioritization a key. She says that the things that must happen each day are breakfast and getting dressed/showered. Those get done first before they do homework, check email, etc…. They also make coffee at home and take it with them in to-go mugs. By skipping the drive-thru they save more time and money as well.
Janseen of Everyday Reading says, “If I let myself pick up my iPhone or turn on the computer, my morning is guaranteed to be shot. Instead I force myself to do at least ONE component of getting ready first (shower, brush my teeth, make my bed) so that my morning is kick-started and I get some momentum going.”
Proxy (delegation)
One of our key Buttoned Up philosophies is delegation. Although it is difficult to do well, delegation is the single, most effective tool for getting more accomplished in less time. When done well, it will help you complete more activities in a shorter amount of time, and probably more effectively (read — better) than you could by yourself.
Judy from Patchwork Times had a great trick for getting her son to manage his time in the morning. She got him an alarm clock and let him decide what time he had to get up in order to get dressed and be downstairs for breakfast by a certain time. If he didn't get up on time and get downstairs at the appointed time, he had to go to bed 30 minutes earlier until he was able to get up and get dressed and be downstairs on time. He hated going to bed early so it only took a few times of him having to go to bed earlier before he learned to get up on time, get dressed on time and be downstairs for breakfast with a smile on his face!
A great idea on how to help the kids get dressed themselves comes from Courtney at A is for Beautiful. She uses a hanging shoe organizer in the kids closets. On Sunday nights they pick out outfits for the week and put them in the pockets. Then each morning there is no arguing over what to wear and a lot of time is saved.
Above all, I find that a little planning and a sense of humor go a long way to making the mornings pass without a rise in the blood pressure. The tips above can really help (even if you just incorporate one or two in your routine) to help you save time in the AM.
Alicia Rockmore (Queen Bee), co-founder of Buttoned Up Inc. created an organizational lifestyle company that helps busy moms get more done by helping them successfully organize less.
Learn more here:
TWITTER @ROCKMORE, FACEBOOK FACEBOOK.COM/GETBUTTONEDUP
EMAIL INFO@GETBUTTONEDUP.COM
BLOG WWW.GETBUTTONEDUP.COM
I started teaching my kids about getting up and dressed on their own when they were very young. There was a TV program they really liked that was on from 7-7:30. The rule was that they could watch it if they were completely dressed and in front of their breakfast by 7. This became such a habit that by Kindergarten I never had any AM struggles.
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