If you are anything like me, you hate rushing around in a panic getting things together last minute. This chaos sets the tone for the rest of your brand new day.

As working parents with children at home to look after, we often put our needs last, and that includes getting ready in the morning.

If you have read my post How to Streamline Your Kids Going Back to School, and Save Your Sanity, your children’s mornings are going smoothly. However, you, dear hard working parent, need a smooth morning transition between getting up in the morning and heading off to work. Here are some time-saving tips just for you. You deserve a good morning!

10 Time Saving Tips to Get Your Morning Started Smoothly.

1. Have your morning and evening routines planned out.

Hopefully, by now, you have your morning and evening routines planned out alongside your children’s so you can get them off to school without hassle. The first step of making your mornings before work run smoothly is to create both an evening routine and a morning routine.

2. Pick and layout tomorrow’s outfit before you go to bed.

Bonus if you put your week’s outfits together Sunday Night. You can hang your accessories along with the outfit on the hanger.

If you carry a purse, have one dedicated to the work week. You won’t have to sort through your purse each morning and move its contents to a different one. If you carry a briefcase, consider putting your essentials into that instead of carrying a separate purse.

3. If you are a coffee drinker, prep your coffee pot the night before.

Get the grounds in the basket, and water in the reservoir. Most coffee pots today have a timer you can set to have the coffee start automatically for you. If you set your coffee pot to brew as your alarm goes off, you will be woken up by the scent of fresh brewing coffee.

4. Make sure you are getting enough sleep.

Sleep is one of the most significant factors besides a healthy gut to your well-being, mentally and physically. Ideally, you want five sleep cycles minimum in your night’s sleep. Check out this Sleep Calculator to help you achieve the perfect sleep cycle.

5. Stop hitting snooze by moving your alarm clock across the room.

Do yourself a favor, invest in an analog alarm clock; one as my mom would say, “Bloody bells to wake the dead.” Not only do the old school clocks not have a snooze button, they typically don’t give off blue light.

Regardless of the alarm clock you use, move it to a place you have to get out of bed to turn it off. You are already out of bed, no sense getting back into it. Make the bed instead, remind yourself you are up for the day.

6. Open the curtains right after you turn off your alarm.

Another way to keep you from crawling back into bed is to let the sunshine in. Open your curtains on your way to the alarm clock if you have to walk past your window to turn it off. If you don’t have to walk past a window, turn the alarm off, open your curtains, and make your bed.

7. Time your showers and makeup routine.

Give yourself enough time to wash your body and hair. For some people, that takes 5 minutes. Give yourself the desired time, 10 minutes or less.

Set an alarm for yourself if you have to, or have someone knock on the door a minute before your time is up.

Organize your workday makeup in a bin so that all of your items are together. You will save time by not having to rummage around trying to find your favorite products.

You can also create a professional look in minutes. Here are two videos to help you manage your makeup time.

2 Minute Makeup Tutorial

5 Minute Makeup Tutorial

8. Use Sunday to prepare breakfast and lunches for the week.

You get a bonus if you also prep your supper meals on Sundays too. You will have quick, easy, healthy meals on the table in minutes throughout the week.

Lunch ideas:

• Salad in a jar: You can use a pint jar for a smaller portion, a quart jar for a larger portion. Add in dressing at the bottom, layer in hardy items like tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, or carrots. Add any protein you plan on using, sliced meats, diced hardboiled eggs, nuts, or cheese as an example. Pack in your greens twist the top on, pop in the fridge.
• Palo “Sandwiches”: Prep lettuce leaves by washing, and layering between paper towel. Make your filling, tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, sliced meat, store in a container. The night before, fill your lettuce and roll it up, ready for the next day.
• If you eat bread, you can put your sandwiches together ahead of time; except for a sauce based “salad” type, unless you don’t mind soggy bread. You can put your salad based sandwich filling into a small container and make your sandwich at lunchtime.
• Use the cook once, eat twice mindset. Leftovers make awesome lunches. Pack your leftovers into a grab and go lunch the night before.

Breakfast Ideas:

• Pear and walnut Pancakes
• Old fashioned Baked Oatmeal Recipe
• Alyssa’s Breakfast Casserole (Primal Friendly)
• Amanda’s Ham, potato, egg, and cheese Breakfast Casserole (Primal Friendly)
• Autumn Breakfast Casserole from Real Simple Good (Paleo and dairy free, Whole30 Compliant.)
• Paleo Overnight “Oats” from Real Simple Good (Whole30 and Paleo) There are no oats in this oatmeal.
• Overnight Oats – 8 Ways from Life Made Sweeter. These recipes contain oats.
• Kitchen Sink Egg Muffins from Sarah Lynn Smile.

9. Always stop for gas on your way home or fill up on the weekend.

Instead of rushing around to “hurry up and wait” in the morning to get gas along with the rest of the city, avoid the hassle by filling up on your way home from work in the evening or during the weekend while you are out and about. The time difference in my experience was 5 minutes in the evening vs. 20 in the morning.

10. Leave your keys, cell phone, coat, briefcase, and anything you need to run out the door with by the door in a drop off zone.

If you read my post How to Streamline Your Kids Going Back to School, and Save Your Sanity post, you already know the importance of a drop off zone for your kids. A drop off zone is equally essential for you. Making a habit of dropping your keys off in a basket by the door on your way in, and putting your cell phone on a charger at night in the same basket reduces the “Where did I put my…” dilemma most of us face each day.

Your Turn!

Do you have other time saving tips or tricks to get your morning started smoothly? Share them and your thoughts in the comments below.

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