Friday, April 2, 2010

Fantastic Four Friday - Conquering the Morning Madness

Project management is a skill I excel at in the workplace but it is the complete opposite at home maybe it's because no one is paying me to be organized.

That said, here are my four attempts to conquer the madness and chaos that is the morning routine

1. Creating a Routine - Raising kids is about routine, routine, routine. I am not saying I am perfect at it but when it comes to corraling the morning chaos, having a routine moves you one step closer to not losing your mind and your temper in the morning. The first thing, my daughter and I do when we enter our apartment is put her backpack on the doorknob by the door,  she then takes her lunchbox out and puts in the kitchen. I put my bag near the door as well. That way, I am not running around in the morning looking for her bag or mine. I then go through her backpack for any documents that need to be read and there is always something to read/do for school.


2. Prepare the Night Before -  I try to do as much the night before as possible. That means get all your permission slips signed, money for school trips, notes for teachers done the night before and placed in the backpack. I can not tell you the number of the times I have forgotten something and showed up at school scrambling for money for school trips. That goes for school lunches as well. I try to put the refrigerated stuff in the lunch box and just leave it in the fridge. You can't miss it when you go for your morning milk for coffee. Some people do this early when they get up but I am constantly amazed at the number of mornings, we are ready to leave and no school lunch is made. Needless to say, that is why there is money in her school lunch account.


3. Everything Has it's Place - Everything you need for the next day should be by the door. That way you know where it is and so does your child. Plus how can you miss it? You have to see as you are leaving. For us, my daughter's backpack is by the door, her karate uniform is by the door although she has class on Thursday. I have forgotten the darn thing on more than one occasion just because out of site out of mind. Even my bag is by the door.

4. Memo Boards - If you can remember stuff from day to day more power to you. There is just too much to remember from day to day - doctor's appointment, school meetings/trips, work stuff. In fact, I have two memo boards, each placed strategically in my little one bedroom apartment. One in the kitchen that holds all important reminders that are coming up and one on the door. The door memo board is for reminders for the next day, like my keys, school trips. You would think I would remember these things since it's on the big board but alas no.

What do you do to alleviate the morning madness routine? All great ideas are welcome.

P.S. Notice I did not even get into the waking up, getting dressed, breakfast,  brushing our teeth routine. Good lord that is another entire post.

3 comments:

GayNYCDad said...

I agree. The backpack and lunch bag stay by the door at all times. I pre-pack the night before, the morning gets crazy busy and I wll leave him in school missing many things if I don't prepare the night before like you!

Anonymous said...

Mornings can be very busy! We do a lot of prep the night before as well. :)

Book Lover said...

I never thought I'd have to be so organized when I had kids!

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