Just last night I was reading Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace. One of his lines (other than beans and rice) is that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. He said this in relation to the importance of monthly budgeting.
I have gotten in the bad habit of grabbing a donut and coffee on my way to work – more than once each week. I have also purchased school lunch on more than one occasion. Not only is this crappy for my budget, but my tummy has been hating me.
I applied the “plan to fail” notion to my morning routine. Last night I:
- Set out my clothes
- Measured oatmeal, butter, and jam into a small thermos
- Set my automatic coffee machine (obvious, but the first time I’ve used the timer)
- Packed dinner leftovers into lunches for the next three days
- Told Spencer he was NOT allowed to leave until I was awake and OUT of bed
This morning I:
- Added boiling water to my oatmeal (my the time I got to work it would be cooked)
- Poured my coffee into a traveling mug
and then…
I was so far ahead that I had extra time. I decided to enjoy some of my coffee and catch the morning news.
SURPRISE! Two hour delay because of icy roads! Now, not only do I get to enjoy a two-hour delay, but I already have a great start to my day. I feel awesome and have no plans to go back to bed.
What tricks and tips do you have to a smooth start to your day?
P.S… I installed a new spam filter but I have a sneaky suspicion that it is deleting comments from humans! Please try to leave a comment so I can troubleshoot. 
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I need to plan like this for my days. I would feel so much happier most likely.
Sounds like all good plans….try it again tomorrow.
Leaving a comment. Can you write, or direct me to a very very basic tutorial for crochet? I have no experience, and am getting very frustrated going from site to site trying to put all the instructions together. I can’t make my hands work with the diagrams they show either
I agree – this sort of planning makes for a calm and orderly beginning to the day, which puts you in a better space for responding to the daily happenings that you *can’t* plan ahead.
Great way to start the day. Planning does make life easier. Thanks for your blog/
I always made/packed lunches for days ahead, breakfast, too. I scramble four eggs, and make three pieces of toast. Into three Tupperware cereal bowls, I divide the eggs, topping each bowl with a piece of toast.
To eat, I remove the toast and pop it back into the toaster. I microwave the eggs for about 30 seconds, not enough to really warm them. Then, I put the eggs on the toast and have a foldover sandwich with milk and oj or just one drink. It is easier than it sounds, tastier than it seems and stays me until lunch. Tasty or not, it suits me.
I always hated it when I got three kids up and discovered the classes were delayed for 2 hours. We could all have used the sleep.