3 little words, my friends....
PLANNING IS KEY.
I can’t stress this enough. I am out the door (on time, most days) simply because I have my day planned out. My morning doesn’t change much, so therefore, most mornings run smoothly simply out of habit. Here are a few things I do to help:
On Sundays, I pick out 5 outfits for the week, and I iron each of them. I pick out accessories for each outfit, and hang them with each outfit. This seriously saves me so much time each morning. I don’t have to fret about what I’m going to wear or try to quickly iron anything. I take about 30 minutes on Sunday night to do this – if you only take one tip from this whole post, do this! I also pick AL’s outfits out because B gets her ready every morning…more about this to follow.
Wake up early. Yes, this stinks, but really….how can 15 extra minutes of sleep matter that much? Most mornings, I wake up at 5 a.m., and I’m out the door by 6:15 a.m. The other part of this is…go to bed early. Hard to do sometimes, but believe me, I’m paying for it the next day if I don’t get a decent night’s sleep.
Pack or plan out your lunch. I don’t always pack my lunch the night before, because most days I just take leftovers from the night before, but this is a simple and easy way to save 5 or so minutes every morning.
COFFEE. I love coffee, and I always have one cup while I’m getting ready in the mornings – I especially love my Keurig because it’s so easy and so fast, too!
When I stayed home with AL, mornings were always my time to do the things around the house – like clean up and straighten up, do laundry, wash the dishes, etc – now I make sure all those things are done before I go to bed, or I use my weekends to do a good cleaning and just use the rest of the week to “keep up.” This one took a while to really sink in – for a while, I used to run around the house before I left trying to clean up. Now, I just save it for nights after AL has gone to bed.
Plan out your meals. I am really a meal planner now – I use my Sunday afternoons to plan out 5 nights of meals for the week. Then, I make my grocery list and go to the grocery store. This has saved me a lot of time (and money) – I don’t have to worry about what’s for supper. I always know that I have something at home to cook!
Let your husband (or any other family member or friend) help. Probably the hardest bit for us mamas to swallow. We want to do everything, and we want to do it perfectly. But who says that our hubbies can’t help? B has really stepped up since I started working – he feeds, dresses and gets AL ready every morning. Am I jealous? Of course! But I know that this is quality time that she is getting with her daddy, too! We have to learn to accept that we can’t always do everything. I’m still working every single day on this one…
The reason I plan and organize so much is because every spare minute that I have, I want to spend it with my doodlebug. Every little bit of time that I save is time I get to use playing with my precious daughter.
I also don’t want to leave every morning feeling stressed or under-prepared – I do this for my family and for my sanity.
So, if you're a working mama, and you have some special tips, please SHARE!
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