Anyone that knows me can attest to this, I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON. Trust me, I have really tried to become a morning person.  I have struggled greatly to find a morning routine that would work for me.  I need to have cushion built into my morning routine as I might not get out of bed in time (probably wont!).  But I will say that now that I am doing my morning routine again, I am seeing the difference in my life.  I arrive at work more awake and productive.  I am less stressed because I am not rushing the children to get ready saying we are late, AGAIN!!   Towards the end of the school year, Tommy would ask me each morning “Are we late?”I think that is how he gauged what mood I would be in.  Needless to say my best moments were not in the morning.  I feel bad about this. My hubby is nice in the morning and I am a bit crabby at times to him.  So it is really important to me to once again conquer this morning routine and be the person I wish to be each morning.  I know this comes easy to many people, but for me it is a real struggle.

My morning routine has changed over the years due to the different seasons of my life.  But my morning routine sets the mood for my day and I want that mood to be peaceful and energized.  I set my morning routine by envisioning what I wanted to accomplish each morning.  I work full-time outside of the home, so I do have to include some additional tasks into my morning.  So everyone’s routine will be different.Maybe you home school and want to have uninterrupted time to work on lessons with your children.  Once I had a list of the tasks I wanted to accomplish each morning, I decided what time I need to leave the house.  I have to drop Tommy off at school each morning so I need to leave the house at 9:00.

So from 9:00AM, I go backwards in time and add my tasks and how long each task will take.  I overestimate greatly the amount of time it will take me to complete a task to build in my cushion for the morning.  By going backwards I will come to the time I have to get up to be able to accomplish everything I want to do each morning.  I use a separate online calendar for my home tasks.  I use Yahoo Calendars and I highly recommend it.  I recently discovered how to have the reminders sent to my cell phone from Yahoo calendars.  Way cool!  I will go in detail about this when covering calendars.  It has really helped me a lot.

My Morning Routine

*Alarm Clock goes off at 6:25

6:45 – Out of Bed/Dogs outside and fed – honestly I roll out of bed around 6:50 or so.  But my goal is 6:45!

7:00 – Switch and Fold Laundry/ Empty Trash Cans – I give myself a ½ hour for this, but I can usually get it done in about 20.  That is my built in cushion in case I didn’t get up in time, which happens.

7:30 – Shower/Wipe Down Bathroom/ Spray Shower with Cleaner – I take a very quick shower.  I keep Lysol wipes in the bathroom and wipe the toilet and counter down every morning, which cuts down on cleaning for me.  Remember, I am mom to three boys!   I also spray the shower with a cleaner if I am the last shower of the morning.

7:50 – Wake Tommy – I start waking Tommy at 7:50 – he is a lot like his mommy and not easy to wake up!  So it could take 30 minutes to get him out of bed.

8:00 – Daily Chore if there is one– I plan a daily chore a few mornings of the week.  I have a chronic illness and some mornings I am ill, but I do the best I can.  I divide my weekly cleaning in to small chores each morning so I don’t have to spend a lot of weekend time cleaning.  On Mondays I go in later into the office so I have more time.  But on Tuesday I am very tired as I work until at least 9 in the evening on Monday nights.  So I plan according to meet my needs.

My Chore Schedule

Sunday – Change Bedding, Trash, Cat Litter

Monday – Mops floors: Kitchen and bathrooms

Wednesday – Vacuum Living Room/Sweep Kitchen and Bath

Thursday – Clean Bathrooms

Friday – Pay Bills/Order Scrips

9:00 – Leave for School/Work – Off to work!!

TIPS:

Alarm Clocks – have your older children get themselves up with an alarms clock.  We started this with Erik last year.

Start Out Small – Have one or two things in your morning routine and add items as you can.

Write It Down – This might sound funny, but write down your morning routine!I also have my cell phone text me for every item with a reminder.  I need this to keep on task.

HOMEWORK:

Ok…what do you think?  Do you have a morning routine to write down or would one be helpful to you?  I have two things I would like you to do this week.

1. Use the process above and develop your morning routine. To add an element of accountability, post your morning routine in the comments of this post!
2. Give a shout out to your fellow members of this challenge and tell us a bit about yourself. That will help us to relate to each other and how our lives are similar or different.  I will post about me and my family in a separate post and you can add about yourself and family in the comments to that post!  I look forward to learning a lot from each of you as well!

Thank you again for joining me in this challenge!  I am excited and am working hard to get myself back on track as well.  Together we will all have a wonderful start to our school year!!

Stop back on Friday when we will be discussing our next topic:  Calendars – include how I use Yahoo Calendars/text messaging.   I will be doing a question and answer day next week so post your questions and I will respond to all of them next week!