For the majority of us, mornings are crazy. Between not being a morning person and stumbling my way to coffee, I’m always keen to make mornings more simple. Plus, anything that you can do to make your mornings easier has got to be good right?
The way our mornings unfold sets us up for the rest of the day. If it’s crazy and hectic, I find the rest of the day to be the same way. Rarely do I ever feel like I’ve got all my ducks in a row if my mornings are off the chart. Some mornings I’m lucky enough if I can even find my ducks.
But I have noticed there are things you can do to make your mornings easier – things that can help set you up for a productive, calm and happy day.
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1 – Choose Your Outfit The Night Before
It’s so simple but seriously makes such a big difference.
How much time do you spend each morning deciding what to wear?
I know for me some days it can be a few seconds, other days it’s more like half an hour.
And it can be so frustrating, especially if I’m feeling frumpy or if I’m not in a good mood.
Having my clothes out and ready for the day means that I don’t even have to think about it, sometimes I can even get dressed before I have my coffee because it’s all there and ready.
I do the same for my kids so my 4 year old can get himself dressed and we don’t have to argue about it. That alone is worth the extra effort the night before.
Plus it means that I don’t have to spend ages searching for an item I need or frustrated because what I wanted to wear was dirty and in the wash.
2 – Create Your To Do List The Night Before
I’ve always been a massive advocate of creating your to do list the night before.
Not only does it allow you to start your day doing something productive instead of writing a list, it also allows you to get things off your mind the night before to help you have a much better sleep.
To do lists are the single most important tool when keeping on top of the million and one things you have to do.
But my absolute favourite part of using them is that feeling you get when you cross things off your list.
Which is why I not only write my to do list the night before, but I also complete a small task off my to do list so as soon as my day starts I’ve already got one thing done and know I’m on my way to actually completing my list.
3 – Practice Getting Up On Your First Alarm
I’m pretty much the worst at this… but I’m getting better.
And it really does take practice.
I would honestly set 10 alarms at 5 minute intervals in order to get myself out of bed.
But all this did was made me feel like I was running late for the day before it had even started.
So I reduced the number of alarms I had set and made myself get out of bed (the next point also helped with this…).
It’s amazing what you can do when you’re really determined.
The key for me was to not think about it too much.
Even though I had reduced my alarms to 4, I knew that I HAD to get out of bed on #4, so I did. I didn’t think about it too much, I just got up.
I’ve now got it down to two alarms some days, and one others, and maybe one day I’ll actually get up consistently on the first alarm.
4 – Set Out Your Coffee or Smoothie Prep
When you’re not a great morning person and the lure of snuggling back into bed is pretty good, you need something quite enticing to get you out of bed.
For me, that’s coffee. For some, I know smoothies are a big deal too (I tend to prefer mine in the afternoon but each to their own)
To give myself that extra bit of ooomph to get out of bed I make sure I have all my coffee prep set out the night before.
I have everything on the bench and ensure the kettle is filled with hot water. This means my wake to coffee time is much shorter and therefore I’m much happier.
5 – Change The Way You Talk About Mornings
This is another point I’m still working on, but getting much better at.
For as long as I can remember I’ve always said that I’m not a morning person.
And you know what that does?
It reinforces that I can’t be happy when getting up early of a morning.
By simply saying I love getting up of a morning, it has made me feel less cranky about getting up so early.
Keeping in mind, I said less cranky. I’m not saying that positive thinking is going to all of sudden make you change the level of tiredness you feel of a morning.
But over time, it certainly helps.
I can honestly say, after a few weeks of getting up consistently at 5am, I started to really love it.
There’s no denying that mornings can be rough, but with a few little tweaks and a little bit of planning hopefully these things can help make your mornings easier too.
