4 Steps to a 15-Minute Morning Routine
Running late? Check out these tips to simplify your morning routine.
Whether you’re in school, corporate life, or a stay-at-home parent, morning routines can make a huge impact on how your days go. One of the biggest things I have found that helps me accomplish more each day is to cut down the amount of time it takes me to get ready each morning. If I can get ready to face the world in less time, that means I have more time to focus on my goals.
There are a few things that I have found over the years that help me to get myself ready in 15 minutes or less each day. I have picked up a few tips from successful entrepreneurs along the way, and have come up with a few through trial and errors. Today I’ll give you my four best tips on how to get ready in 15 minutes or less each day.
Be Prepared
The Boy Scouts have it right with their slogan of Be Prepared. If you are going to be able to get from your bed to out your front door in 15 minutes, the first thing you need to do is be prepared. This can vary, depending on what you need to do to get out the door.
The one thing we all need is clean clothes that are easily accessible. If you are not prepared with your laundry, there’s no way you can get quickly get ready because you’re going to spend time searching for shirts that are at the dry cleaner or pants that are in the washer. Similarly, if your clothes aren’t put away in an organized way, you’re constantly going to be hunting for items.
At the very least, you should be able to hop out of bed and grab a complete outfit every day of the week. If you ever find yourself searching for clean undies, that’s a good indicator that you aren’t in a good laundry routine. Maybe you need to get in the habit of doing laundry once a week, or stop at the dry cleaner twice a week. Whatever your routine becomes, it’s the basis of being able to get out the door in less time.
Be Organized
Along with being prepared comes being organized. The more organized you are with the items you need on a daily basis, the quicker you can get out of the house each day. Once your laundry is getting done on a routine basis, you can take things a step farther and have your outfits picked out the night before. That way you can jump out of bed and immediately put on your clothes in the morning. I would recommend doing this all the way down to the shoes so you don’t have to do any thinking in the morning. I know when I’m tired and trying to get ready quickly, I tend to freak out about my clothes. I go through four or five different outfits before settling on the right one. By picking out an outfit the night before, that process can happen before bed, making the morning go by much quicker.
Another thing to have organized are the bags that need to go out the door with you in the morning. Before going to bed, make sure to pack up everything you need in the morning. Whether this is a backpack, briefcase, purse, or diaper bag, it will help to have everything packed up the night before. Not only will it give you one less thing to do in the morning, but it will also help ensure that you don’t forget anything because you won’t be packing in a morning rush.
Have a Uniform
The next tip is one step past just picking out a daily outfit and it is to have a uniform type style. Remember how Steve Jobs always had on jeans and a turtleneck? He wore the same thing every day so he didn’t have to waste time making a decision on what to wear each morning. There are many successful people who also follow this philosophy because they know that their time is better spent on bigger, more important decisions.
Many successful people follow this philosophy because they know that their time is better spent on bigger, more important decisions.
I’ll be honest that guys seem to have this down more than women do. They can grab almost any pair of dress pants and a dress shirt and be ready for work, or jeans and a tee and be ready for a day off. We women tend to make things more difficult for ourselves, which is why it’s even more important to come up with your “uniform” for each day. You may choose to wear dress skirt and button up each day for work. Or, if you’re a stay at home mom, a pair of jeggings and a long tee each day so you look good in the house and out running errands. Once you decide on what your uniform is going to be, put all those items together in your closet. If all these items can mix and match, you can literally just grab one of each with little to no thought in the morning. Do this for a week or two and you may be surprised to realize how much time you are shaving off your morning routine.
Simplify Your Beauty Routine
The final tip is to simplify what you need to do each morning to get ready. When we were living on the road in our RV, I learned a little trick to help simplify my morning routine. I had already trained my hair to only need to be washed about once a week by stretching the time in between washes by a day at a time. While this was handy for not needing to spend time washing and drying my hair each day, it created a little challenge if I didn’t blow dry my hair that first day. When I got into the habit of washing and blowdrying my hair straight once a week, I could do quicker showers at night and touchups with a flat iron on my hair all the other days. Even if you can’t go a full week between washes, you can still probably buy an extra day of not washing by using dry shampoo. Each morning you can get out of the house without washing and drying your hair is another morning you can get ready in 15 minutes or less.
Makeup can be another morning task that can eat up significant amounts of time. To help speed up the makeup process, I’d recommend organizing your makeup to only have the items you use on a daily basis kept near your sink. All other makeup can be kept in a cabinet and pulled out when it’s needed. This way, you still have your evening and special occasion makeup handy, but you don’t have to dig through to find your everyday items.
When it comes down to it, the key to being able to get ready quickly each morning is being prepared and simplified. Mornings can be hectic, so the less you leave to chance, the more likely you are going to be to not have unexpected delays.
Until next time, I’m the Domestic CEO, helping you love your home.
