Yes, you read that right. In just 18 minutes, I am out the door on early workday mornings! Do you remember that commercial for Vaseline Spray and Go moisturizer with the girl who gets dressed super fast? If you don’t remember or never saw it, check it out on YouTube! My aunt once told me that she thought of me when she saw that commercial!
I am not a morning person. I will freely admit that. I snooze and snooze and snooze until the very last second. But my schedule is strict, I have a train to catch and it will wait for no one…so I learned to shorten my mornings out of necessity. Sure, I could just get up earlier, but really, who wants that?
I’ll let you in on a little secret though. Successfully getting out the door quickly in the morning has very little to do with my actual morning routine, and rather has almost everything to do with my evening routine the night before!
What do I do in those 18 minutes? These 9 items are truly every single action I take:
- Use the toilet! I would say this is top of most everyone’s list 🙂
- Put contacts in
- Pour coffee into travel mug
- Pack up meals for the day
- Get dressed
- Hair
- Brush teeth
- Makeup
- Put on coat and shoes and walk out the door!
Ok, so you’re probably looking at the list and thinking “Ok, I still don’t believe she gets all of that done in 18 minutes!”
Here’s the key, I keep it simple as possible and do all the “thinking” and possible prep the night before. This allows me the luxury to operate on “muscle memory” while I am slowly waking up and becoming a coherent human being. (Did I mention I’m not a morning person?) For me, it’s all about reducing any possible source of stress or decision-making, so I am much better off when I accomplish more the night before.
Some of the things I do are self-explanatory, but for the following 5 actions, let’s dig in a bit deeper!
Coffee
I prep my coffee the night before. I have it set to brew on a timer so it turns on and brews before I even get up. And who doesn’t love the smell of fresh coffee in the morning without lifting even a finger?!?!
Meals
As a general rule, I bring my breakfast, lunch, and snacks to work every day! Every now and then I might splurge and eat out, but that is the exception, not the norm. I could write a whole blog post of my meal prepping techniques (and I hope to in the future!), but the key here is that I prep everything either the night before or even multiple days before (likely on Sunday). So then, by morning, the only thing I have to do is grab my food from the refrigerator and counter and pack it into my bag to go!
Get Dressed
This is an easy one. I pick out my clothes the night before. I check the weather every night (I live in Boston, the weather might be 40 and cloudy one day, followed by 60 and sunny the next!). Then I choose and lay out my outfit. And I mean every single piece of that outfit. Pants, shirt, socks, cardigan, everything! I even figure out which coat I’m going to wear, any accessories to go along with it (i.e. scarf or gloves), shoes, and if I will need my umbrella.
Hair
Look, this is something I am admittedly low maintenance about. I shower at night. For me, there’s nothing better than washing the day off and crawling into bed sparkling clean. And then in the morning, I don’t have to worry about blow-drying or fully straightening my hair (which any of you ladies with long hair know can be quite the production). I keep my hair routine simple with a professional yet easy bun that is forgiving of bed-head! If I do decide to wear my hair down (once in a blue moon), I still shower, blow-dry, and straighten the night before, so I only have to do minimal touch-ups in the AM.
Makeup
You may be noticing a pattern here, but I am very low maintenance here as well. I really use minimal makeup, just enough to look professional and presentable while covering up any acne (ugh, I’m in my thirties and still have breakouts!). I only use 3 items and that’s it, for real! For me, a little goes a long way.
- Powder foundation (I find it so much faster to apply than liquid)
- Blush (quick swipe onto my cheekbones)
- Setting powder
Now, I fully recognize that some of these tips may not be applicable if you have young kids, or choose to take your showers in the morning, or apply additional makeup, etc. But what I hope is that you still might be able to apply a few concepts and shave a few minutes off from your morning too!
What do you think? If you try anything I’ve listed here, I’d love to hear from you! What tips do you have? If you can drop me to under 18 minutes, I will be forever in your debt! I look forward to reading your comments below 🙂