Launch Into Your Morning
What are mornings like in your home?
Here’s what you don’t want for your answer:
-- Desperate searches through the house for
your book bag.
-- Desperate searches through your book bag
for the homework you were sure you stuffed
in there last night – unless you just dreamed
you finished it?
-- Desperate struggles to get your kids out of
bed and ready for school.
In other words, what you don’t want is a flurry of pointless activity that leaves you feeling stressed out and rushed – especially not if this happens every morning. That’s no way to live!
If your mornings are wild, why not take some of the stress out by establishing morning “launch pads” for yourself and your whole family?
A launch pad is a particular place where you keep all the stuff you are going to need to take with you the next day: a shelf, a table, a plastic bin, whatever. This is the place for your bag, phone, and keys. Do you have library books that need to be returned? A shopping list because you need to pick up groceries on the way home? All those things get to the launch pad the night before and are waiting for you the next morning.
If you’re taking multiple classes, then make sure everything you need for tomorrow’s classes are in your bag the evening before. It helps to have a separate folder and notebook for each class, to make sure each folder is a different color, and to write “MATH” or “HISTORY” on the front of the folder in giant letters. If you’re obsessive – and a touch of obsessiveness is an excellent thing – then coordinate the colors so that the MATH folder and notebook are both yellow, the HISTORY folder and notebook are both red, and so on. All handouts and assignments go in the folder the minute they are handed out. All notes for
If you’re not a morning person, this plan won’t magically make you love mornings. But if you’ve got a plan, if you’re organized, if everything is just where you need it to be, then you don’t actually have to be all the way awake to get yourself and the kids out the door in good order. And in that case, you may find that mornings aren’t quite as difficult as they used to be.
Stop letting rough mornings ruin your day and your productivity!
Rachel Neumeier
4
MATH are in their own notebook, not scattered through the notebook you also use for all your other classes.
Establish the same type of launch pad and the same type of organization for everyone else in the household – avoid exceptions. Who wants to spend their morning looking for their child’s homework? Your children can put the things they need for tomorrow’s school in their own special location the night before. Then no one needs to search for anything at the last minute.
You can be creative with this concept: if the kids have trouble deciding what to wear or finding their shoes, their outfit for the coming day can be laid out ahead of time. If you routinely suffer through squabbles about breakfast, decide the night before what breakfast will be. Are your mornings filled with arguments about who has to take out the trash or walk the dog or make the beds? Settle all the debate the night before and stick to your plan when the time comes.