Tag: Morning Routines

My Morning Line-Up, In the Kitchen!

I have been adding new healthy components to my morning routine, and I want to share my process with you!  Then you can see how to re-work your routines when you consider new challenges and solutions.  lemon water

Here are a few truths I have discovered, perhaps you can learn from them:

  1. Stressing out about healthy habits defeats the purpose of healthy habits. I’m adding these habits for wellness.  How about you?  Stressed out about being less stressed?
  2. To feel good all day and defeat temptation, I need to start strong so that I can stay strong.  Do you agree, for yourself?  For example… last weekend, I had a slice of cold deep dish pizza for breakfast.  And it was GOOD!  However…. blowing off my routine made it easier to blow off good habits for the rest of the day.  Maybe it was because it was Saturday and routines are meant to be blown off once in a while, but I think the pizza was a delicious but unwise choice.
  3. Decision making slows me down in the morning. Maybe this is just me.  But now is the time to think things through, put the healthy habits in the right order, and make them routine.  So I can think about other things.

 Here are my challenges, and what I am doing about it:

  • I’m avoiding a few food ingredients that happen to be in most breakfast foods. So I need a healthy, substantial and easy solution that I don’t have to think about.
  • I’ve gotten very consistent about taking my vitamins daily, now I need to be consistent about taking them in the morning.

I work with a “morning line-up” when I get ready in the morning (go to the original blog article here). I line up what I need – face lotion, contacts, toothbrush and paste, etc. – on the bathroom counter, and put each item away after I use it.  The goal is a Ready Me and a clean counter.  Knowing the line-up works, I decided to try the same idea with my morning nutrition – lining up all the items I need to consume in the morning and throughout the day on the counter and putting the items away when I am done.  Here’s how:

  • Attach the new habits to a habit that already works.  I will never forget my coffee.  So, my kitchen line-up starts when I make my first cup of coffee, even if I don’t drink it right away!
  • Choose the location for the routine: The counter with the coffee maker is where the kitchen line-up will live.
  • Choose a few specific steps and put them in a efficient, time-saving order. I can start my first cup of coffee brewing; then standing at the same counter, pour the lemon water, mix up my vitamin shake, start my oatmeal, and fill my reusable water bottle and set it by the door and my briefcase.
  • Have a back-up plan.  I programmed my phone to remind me to take everything before 8:15 when we leave the house for school and work.
  • Some tasks can remain flexible.  I’ve been aiming for a banana-orange smoothie (3 servings of fruit) every day, but it makes a great afternoon snack, and doesn’t need to happen in the morning.
  • The goal is a Ready-and Fortified Me and a clean counter.

So, what’s it going to be?  Do you have health and wellness goals you need to cultivate?  Try the steps above and add healthy habits to your morning routine!

12 Answers to “Why Do I Have To Make My Bed?”

(Love this!  Originally posted in 2014, when my sons were 10, 14 and 16!)

Klimczak household, 7:30 am in a recent Thursday morning,Single_Bed.svg.med

“Why do I have to make my bed?”, the 10 year-old grumbles. “It’s just going to get all swirled up again tonight.”

He’s right, of course.  In my head, I say “I know, honey. I understand your frustration. I often rail inwardly at the seeming futility of housework – why do I need to clean the kitchen when we’re just going to mess it up again at dinner time?”

But this is not what I say out loud, of course. What I do say out loud is “because its time to make your bed. It’s what we do every morning. Then you need to put your dirties in the hamper so I can start a load of laundry”.

He sighs.  I sigh. He is right, but so am I.

As a parent, I need to encourage and cultivate habits of self reliance and responsibility with my kids.  On other mornings we have talked about why we clean our rooms and make our beds every day.

  • Because it shows we have pride in our selves.
  • Because it shows we care about our stuff.
  • Because it’s nice to slide into smooth, crisp sheets at the end of the day.
  • Because we never know who may stop by, and you don’t want to look like a slob.
  • Because it’s what we do.
  • Because it’s the right thing to do.
  • Because it will give me one less things to nag you about later.
  • Because I said so.

As a professional organizer, I tell him to make his bed because:

  • It’s important it is to create good habits and routines.
  • We all have chores to do every day.  Some chores are for survival, some for maintenance and some for progress. And if we do the maintenance tasks regularly, the other ones are easier.
  • Studies show how making your bed every morning helps you be more productive for the rest of the day.
  • Productivity comes more easily to those people who can find motivation inside themselves instead of outside

But come on, let’s face it. He’s 10, and that’s a little heavy for 7:30 am on a Thursday.

So the parent comes back, checks on progress, helps the 10 year-old finish the job he started, makes the bed-making a game with lots of pillow tossing and giggles, and models the right behavior.

Only you and I know that we do these things not necessarily because we want to, but because we need cultivate good habits and self motivation, in ourselves and in our children.

Because some day when he and I are both older, I won’t be there to nag him every day.

Because even these little things matter.

So, friend, go make your bed.

Great Big Organizing Secret!

I am going to share a big organizing secret here.  It may rock your world, change your life, make you gasp, so you might want to prepare yourself.  Are you ready?  The secret to an organized life…..is…… (drum roll here) maintenance!  Tah Dah!! (gasps, applause, sounds of disbelief)  Told you it was big.

Ok, so it’s neither big nor really a secret, but Maintenance is the key to making organization stick.

We spend hours on organizing projects, or at least my clients and I do.  We plan, we purge, we organize, we work hard.  But the most important part of the process happens after I leave, the next morning and every day after that.  Maintenance is vital to the success of any system.  Here is an example of maintenance and a great organizing tool, all rolled up into one.

I am a stickler for routines for my family, even during the summer.   It is so easy, too easy, to get off track during the summer months and let maintenance slip.  Without the school day structure, we forget to eat a healthy breakfast at a regular time, abandon basic personal hygiene (I have teen age sons) and generally take too long to get ready in the morning, leaving much undone.  So we turn to our Morning Line-Up.

We use The Morning Line-Up every day:

  1. Starting with a clean bathroom counter, take out all the items you need to get ready every morning and Line Them Up: we’ll call these the Usual Suspects in Your Morning Line-Up.
  2. My Usual Suspects include antiperspirants, Face Lotion with SPF 30, toothpaste and brush, hair product and brush, contacts and solution, lip stain and powder.
  3. Next to these are my kids’ deodorants, toothbrushes and pastes, a comb and fingernail clippers (someone always needs those).
  4. Now, as we use items in our Morning Line-Up, we put the item back in the cabinet (or drawer, or basket under the sink, which ever you prefer).
  5. You can make this even easier by dedicating one shelf / basket / etc. for just your Usual Suspects.
  6. And as a great example of maintenance, the counter is clean again (maintenance) when we are done with our personal hygiene (also maintenance!).

This may turn your usual process upside down, to start with all your items all over the counter, and clean as you go, but it is a great habit to get into.  Think of this in terms of cooking a meal.   Prepare to cook by taking out all the ingredients you need and lay them out in order, then put them away when you are done with them.  That way you can see at a glance what is left to add to your recipe and you have a clean kitchen when you are done, instead of taking everything out as you use it, and having a trashed kitchen at the end.

This idea reaps multiple benefits:

  1. At a glance, I know for certain when I am ready, and I don’t forget things. And I know when I need to nag my sons to finish.
  2. We can add new habits to the line-up, if there is something we want to improve upon. For example, adding floss to the line up at the recommendation of our dentist recently, or when I added contacts and solution when I decided to wear them more regularly.
  3. I have a client cultivating a “Swipe and Swish” habit to tidy up the bathroom every morning. So she adds window cleaner and paper towels as part of her Line-Up.
  4. The Morning Line-Up idea can improve other areas, for example, nutrition. If I get forgetful about my daily vitamins or supplements, I take out the basket containing all of them, and dump it out on the kitchen counter. I put the bottles back in the basket after I take each vitamin, so I know if I am current.

So, give some thought to your routines this week, and how you can improve your current systems with just a little more time and attention to maintenance.    Have a great week!  Off to brush my teeth….

Life Management Strategy: Back To Ready!

This time of year brings change.  Seasons change, school years are end, schedules and priorities shift.  These are all great things, but sometime these changes and the summertime lack of structure can leave our homes and offices disorganized.  Here’s a simple idea to keep your home and offices in (relatively) good shape:  “Back To Ready”. 

We used to call this strategy Back To Normal, but as my 7-year-old always asks, “What is Normal, anyway?”  “Back To Ready” is a favorite for myself and my clients (I’ve suggested it to 2 clients just this week and one suggested I share, so I am!).  It is a proactive, positive step to manage our lives and spaces, and it prepares us for whatever the week throws our way.  We may not be able to control what comes up, but we can control how we deal with it.

Working from home, I find it difficult to focus on work when my home feels cluttered and unfocused.  In my defense, to a casual observer my home would not look cluttered.  But I know when things are left undone, and because of who I am and what I do, I have a very low tolerance for disorganization.

So “Back to Ready” is very important for my success!  What does “Ready” look like?

  • Beds made; Bedrooms tidied up / surfaces cleared off;
  • Clothes and shoes dealt with— Dirty ones in the hamper, clean ones put away;
  • Breakfast dishes in the sink or dishwasher, table wiped off;
  • Bathroom cleaned up, towels hung up, surfaces clear, mirror wiped clean;
  • Papers gathered together for me to work on them, or purge or shred them.

“Back to Ready” takes 30 minutes on a Monday morning (or occasionaly Sunday night) for us, though you can pick your own day!  It involves starting laundry and a sink of soapy dishwater, going room by room and collecting clutter, emptying trash and vacuuming.  I start the process while the kids are still home, so they can tidy up their rooms and put away their clean laundry.  And we choose Mondays because we are very hard on our home on the weekends!

Choose one spot, and start there every week, so you don’t waste time and mental energy wondering “Where to Start?”  You can choose the easiest room (my youngest son’s), or the most public room (the entry way and living room), or the hardest room (kitchen) first.  It’s up to you, just choose.  Now, only spend a few minutes in each room—this is not major cleaning, this is just maintenance between cleanings, and preparing for the week ahead. 

I carry a notebook with me, too, to jot down the random ideas that occur to me during this particular exercise.  The ideas could read “Need laundry detergent, need snacks for baseball, bake cookies for friend, new sneakers for the teenager, change smoke detector batteries, etc.”

Look around your home this week, determine the 5 or 6 tasks that would help you and your family prepare for the week, and complete those tasks early to get you and your home Back To Ready.  Summer is a great time to try something new when it comes to morning routines, so give it a try!