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Is your morning routine taking too long? It doesn’t have to, you know? Here are 5 tips for saving time in the morning and getting your day started better.
My day often started like this: Alarm. Snooze. Alarm. Snooze. Alarm. Roll out of bed. Shower. Breakfast? Hair. Coffee? Work.
No more! Now I get to eat breakfast and get through my morning without stress.
You’ve probably promised yourself that you’d wake up half an hour earlier, get some yoga done, and make yourself breakfast. Maybe you’ve even tried it once or twice, but you got sick of breaking those promises to yourself, so you quit.
Well, it’s time to get the most important meal of the day, some more sleep, and maybe even some yoga time! If you are scrambling to complete your morning beauty routine, check out these five ways to help you stop racing the clock.
Table of Contents
Time-saving tips for a stress-free morning
Tip #1: Shower the Night Before
Many women believe a shower helps them wake up faster. However, this can be detrimental in two different ways.
First, when we plan to shower in the morning, it can be more challenging to fall asleep. A hot shower will relax your muscles and clear your respiratory system. This helps you fall asleep faster and can give you a deeper sleep.
Secondly, on those cold days, it is difficult to get out of bed, knowing that your bathroom floor is equivalent to a block of ice, and it will take your shower water a few minutes to warm up to the proper temperature. It’s even more difficult because you didn’t get a deep enough sleep the night before.
Showering the night before and not in the morning will save you ten to thirty minutes the next morning. That is breakfast, right there! If you tend to sweat a lot in your sleep, just wash your hair the night before and have a quick rinse to refresh yourself in the morning. This, too, will save you time.
Tip #2: Hair the Night Before
If you’ve showered and washed your hair the night before, you might as well set yourself up for a quick hair styling session for the following morning. In the olden days, women set their hair every night.
Let’s apply that concept to the current styles. Women are looking for a natural loose wave to give them volume and boost their classiness. A great way to get that look without spending hours on your hair is to braid it the night before while it is still wet.
When you wake up in the morning, go over your braid with a hairdryer to get those waves to stick. You could also re-wet your hair with water or a heat protectant spray” to ensure your wave stays with you all day. When you take the braid out, toss on some hairspray, and hit the road!
If you want tighter waves or spirals, use large curlers and wrap your wet hair at an angle. Follow the same steps the next morning as the braid.
Setting your hair the night before can save you up to (and sometimes well over) an hour in the morning. There is another hour of sleep for you or even a little light yoga!
Tip #3: Dry Shampoo
It is in your hair’s best interest not to wash it every day. If you tend to have oily hair, you may disagree. However, a little dry shampoo goes a long way.
Save a little time by ditching the washing and drying routine and incorporating dry shampoo (a talcum spray) in the morning. Not only does this help you save time, but it also helps your hair replenish when you avoid stripping it with shampoos and conditioners.
This will save you up to twenty minutes in the morning, and the dry shampoo has the same effect as a washing and drying treatment.
I recommend starting by using dry shampoo every other day. Some women can go an entire week using only the dry shampoo, but if you are a beginner, you should see how your hair reacts to it first.
Tip # 4: Stay Organized
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Organization is the key when you want to save time. Endless products are available to help you organize your makeup collection. The best of these products can be found in the school supply section.
Buy a few different pencil holders and organize your makeup by colors. For example, you might have the earth-tone eye shadows with the brown liners and brow pencils in one pencil holder and your vibrant colors in another. Keep your smoky eye kit in a separate box.
Store these boxes under your sink, and choose the colors you want to use the night before to match your outfit.
This is a great way to prepare everything for you in the morning, and it saves you the time of searching for everything and fumbling around, frustrated in the morning.
You can also do this with your hair products. Before you go to bed, line up your hair and makeup arsenal as you usually put it on. This will knock a few minutes off of your morning routine. And those minutes add up in the end!
Tip #5: Get Your Clothes Ready
It may feel like you are going back to elementary school, but laying out your clothes before you go to bed, really does save you time in the morning. It is a great way to get all your decision-making done when you are not in a time crunch. You can try on different things and check yourself out in the mirror without checking your watch every fifteen seconds.
Additionally, your decision-making skills might be a little haywire in the mornings, which can cause this “choosing of the clothes” to take longer. This is why it is a great idea to have yourself prepared for the morning with zero worries by picking out your clothes for the day the night before.
Another great time-saving technique is to choose your clothes for the week on Sunday nights. Line them up in the closet in the order in which you will wear them.
Choosing your clothes before bed (or before your week starts) is a great way to save up to twenty minutes in the morning.
Bonus tips for saving time in the morning
While the above 5 actions will save you lots of time in the morning, other quick things will help save even more time.
- automatize your morning coffee with a programmable coffee maker (I love this inexpensive one, and it does a great job)
- if you work out in the morning, sleep in your workout clothes
- pack your lunch the night before
- smoothies for breakfast: it only takes a couple of minutes to make it and you can take it with you. Invest in a good blender with a self-cleaning mode (I love my red Vitamix!)
- go easy on the makeup. Natural is beautiful, and you can save makeup for special occasions
- be organized: have specific sports for things you need every day, and you’ll save lots of time by putting them back in the same place (car keys are an excellent example of this)
What are some ways you trim your prep time in the morning? Please share with us in the comments below!
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