{5} Ways to Save Your Mornings

I don't think I've ever been a morning person but now, in my early 30s, I think I've finally reached that "adult" stage where I can't sleep in and wake-up about the same time every morning, no matter what the alarm does.

In some ways it's nice.  I remember our early days (years) of marriage, it wasn't uncommon for us to sleep until 10 on Saturdays.  Now our days start earlier and we don't eat breakfast to find out it's lunch time 30 minutes later.  We've maybe gotten more productive in our older age and certainly better at using our time.

But I don't think I'll ever be a real morning person.  I'm never going to be one of those people who spring out of bed the second they wake up in the morning and are immediately bright eyed.  I don't see that ever in my future.  I will hit snooze many times before I finally get out of bed, more begrudgingly in the fall/winter/early spring when it's cold and dark.

But with a kid who could wake up anytime between 7:30am and 9am (although generally past 8) and places we sometimes need to be, it helps to have some sort of control over our mornings.  We are still aren't great about it and pretty good at consistently being 15 minutes late to anything before 10am (besides Sunday morning Mass, mainly because Matt is here to get Luke around and I don't work out) but we are getting better.  And constant improvement isn't a bad thing to strive for.

Five ways to make your mornings a little smoother.

1) Lay out clothes the night before
I do this pretty much every morning, even if we aren't going anywhere.  I don't want to waste precious minutes in the morning trying to figure out what I'm going to wear, even if my Mom "uniform" is pretty consistent.  I don't have the brain power minutes after waking up to think about clothes.  So the night before I check the weather and lay everything out.

This also goes for getting my purse ready for days we have somewhere to be and will definitely apply to Luke's backpack and school things when we're at that stage.

2) Think about supper the night before
I menu plan and swear by it.  If we aren't having leftovers for supper (we will eat the same thing for days until it's gone), I (usually) check my menu plan the night before and pull out meat/cheese/bread that needs to thaw, get out the crockpot and canned goods, whatever few things I can do to either save me a few steps in the morning, remind me I need to throw something in the crockpot before walking out the door, or just to have things not frozen when 5pm rolls around.

3) Don't think about it, just do it
I have a morning routine Monday-Friday.  Get out of bed, make bed, put on workout clothes, use bathroom, refill water bottle, say goodbye to Matt, and workout.  I don't debate on if I should work out or if I should make the bed.  I just do it.  Then I'm usually working out before my brain is fully with it and before I know it, that's done.  I love my routines and anything that saves my brain a little.

4) Leave the sink empty
Most of this list could be summarized by "do all of this the night before".  And this is another one.  Pack the dishwasher, hand-wash a few dishes, leave the kitchen in a state that won't make you groan when you walk in it in the morning.  Or wonder if you have clean bowls for cereal.  We frequently let dishes dry in the drainer overnight (because I hate hand drying them when time and the air will do it for me!) but not dirty ones.  I don't want to wake up to that!  And then I can put away clean, dry dishes when Luke inevitably takes 45 minutes to eat his bowl of cereal. 

5) Go to bed (Early? Earlier?) 
We could always do better on this but have improved since becoming parents.  We stick to our (self-imposed) "bedtime" better and usually get at least 7.5 hours of sleep a night.  It's usually the nights we resist going to bed the most that we need sleep badly.  You know when you are too tired to go to bed?  Yes, avoid THAT.  Go to bed earlier and your morning is almost guaranteed to start better!

I am dreading Luke starting school for many reasons, besides missing having my buddy around (it's so hard to think about), the morning rush and out the door before 8 is the thing that I am least looking forward to.  But, maybe by then we'll have this morning thing all figured out. =)  Tips appreciated!

How do you survive the mornings?  Consider homeschooling your kids just so you don't have to rush out the door before 8am?  That's one of the many reasons that is attractive to me...