What's Causing You to be Late?
What’s causing you to be late?
While brainstorming blog topics and what could help our Chaos Organizing friends “Win the Day”, help with routines came to mind. As a teacher, I HAD to be on time. No excuses. Not only did I have to be on time, but I really needed to arrive early to attend to a few things before students were walking through the door. In addition to getting myself out the door, I also had to get two small children dressed and ready for school.
I conquered this challenge by instilling an evening routine!
What is an evening routine? The definition of routine is a sequence of actions that you do repeatedly. That’s it. You repeat this sequence of actions every night to establish your routine. It will take discipline, but you can do it!
Here are actions that should be included in your evening routine.
Lay out your clothes for the next day. So much time is wasted in the morning with this decision.
Put your purse, keys, wallet, mail, and everything else that goes out the door with you in the morning in one location. This location should be the designated spot every single evening. (No more searching for things in the morning!) Having a phone charger in this space would be smart so everything is there together.
Check the weather. Do you need to leave a little early due to fog, rain, snow? (Well, not so much snow in south Louisiana).
Check the calendar. Do you need anything besides the usual items? School projects? Valentine’s Card? Mardi Gras beads? LSU shirt?
Now take 15 minutes to reboot your house. For me, this involves making sure the dirty dishes are in the dishwasher, sofa cushions and sofa pillows are straight, extra blankets are folded and placed in a basket, toys (now just dog toys for me) are put in their home. I usually throw the dirty kitchen towels into the dirty clothes basket as well. This step will likely take you more than 15 minutes in the beginning but in an incredibly short time you will master this step and it will literally take only a few minutes.
Make a list of your routine and post it until it’s memory. Have kids? They can benefit from an evening routine too! Young children’s routines need to be simple and pictures can be used if they cannot read. Use their age as a gauge of what they can accomplish. 3 things for a 3-year old, 4 things for a 4-year-old, etc.
Not sure where to start when making routines? Give us a call and let’s set up a consultation to get you on the right path. A path where you are no longer running late. A path that helps you “WIN the day”!
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