Make Your Mornings Easier by Planning Them the Night Before
When you have a big family, or even a small family with a busy schedule, mornings can be the most stressful times of the day. The best way you can avoid all of that stress in the morning is to prepare for things the night before. Here are a few things that you should focus on at night so that when you wake up all you need to do is family bonding before your day begins.
Wash the dishes
After dinner is done and everyone is finished with leftovers, make sure that you get a head start on all of the dishes that need to be done. While it might not be a task that you really want to get started on as soon as you are finished eating, it will make your life in the morning a lot easier if you get them washed before you go to bed. No more leaving pans to soak. Wash them the same night and they won’t need to soak because they will already be clean.
Clean the counters and sweep the floors
Since you are already working on cleaning things, the brown kitchen cabinets, the floor, and the stove could also use a post-dinner clean up before you call it a night. This is extra work added on top of everything else you have already done tonight, but I promise that it will make your life so much easier if you clean everything up the night before. This will be something you will hate doing at first, but tell the family to help you so you can split it into sections and have less work on your back. Once you get into a routine and see how calm your mornings are, you won’t hate the clean-up anymore.
Take showers
Another thing that you should make sure that you handle the night before is the showers. Even if you have a large family, tell everyone to work out a time sometime between when they get home and when they go to bed. This way, everyone is clean and no one is fighting over the shower first thing in the morning. This will not only save hot water for emergencies, but it will give everyone a little bit more time in the morning to get ready for their work and school day.
Prepare your outfit for the next day
If this isn’t something that you are already doing the night before, make sure that you change that. Planning out outfits the night before saves you so much stress and it makes your life so much easier in the morning. This is something that is so simple, especially for those that have older kids that are capable of picking out their own outfits that are appropriate for school. Check in with the outfits before going to bed to make sure that they are cleaned and match and your work is done there.
If breakfast can be prepared a night early, do that
While breakfast should always be on the menu for the morning, if there is any way you can predict what you are going to make, and if it is something that reheats well, you should consider making that the night before as well. If you like cold brew coffee, or if you like having yogurt, these are things that you can make the night before and have waiting for you in the fridge.
If you can’t prepare breakfast for everyone the night before, at least make sure that you have it planned out and all of the dry and warm ingredients are already waiting on the counter so you don’t have to go looking for them first thing in the morning.
There are plenty of ways you can prepare for the morning the night before, but you should definitely try to start with these and not push yourself too much at once. When you and your family get the hang of adjusting to this new lifestyle, you should feel free to try to add more things to your nightly routine in order to have a more organized and calm morning. And don’t forget to take weekends off and give yourself the break that you deserve while you and your family sleep in.
Author bio: I’m Jaylin: Guest post service planner of Leelija and full time blogger. Favorite things include my camera, traveling, caring my fitness, food and my fashion. Email id: editor@leelija.com
