Getting Out the Door….On Time

Nothing is harder than getting up to the same frantic routine everyday after a bad night’s sleep or not enough sleep at all and stress awaiting your whole day.  You might as well just pull the covers over your head and hide…..or should you?

Granted, daily living with an over scheduled schedule is a daunting task, but you are a smart cookie who has mastered much more complicated problems! You can master this too.  It just takes a little pre-planning and elimination of decision making early in the morning when you brain is still half asleep.

1.Pack lunches the night before while cleaning up the dinner dishes.  At some point, the kids will need to take this over with your supervision of course.  Getting them involved early on teaches them how to pack a healthy lunch & lets you know what they like or don’t like.

2.Set the table for breakfast after dinner is cleaned up.  Get out cereals, bread for toast, get the coffee maker ready, etc to make starting the day with a good meal a snap.  Have a designated time for everyone to eat breakfast so you can start the day together discussing your day & heading off any last minute challenges.

3.Load up backpacks before bedtime with signed-off homework, signed parent slips, completed homework then set in the Command Center.

4.Sunday night, choose 5 outfits for the week & line them up in the closet like my nieces do.  Then, it’s just a matter of grabbing the next outfit.  No hunting, or stressing over what to wear.  My sister’s a genius!

5.This is the most important.  Make sure you are up before your children so you have time to at least shower & maybe get your make-up on.  It’s just like being the first one at work.  You feel more in control because you are ahead of everyone else & not stressed because you are trying to play catch-up.

Don’t beat yourself up if a crazy, unforeseen thing happens to knock your morning off kilter.  It could have been worse had you not been prepared & there’s always tomorrow, because tomorrow is another day!