5 Steps To Keep My Mornings as Stress Free as Possible

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Jimmy Dean®. The opinions and text are all mine.

My Plan to Keep My Mornings Flowing & Stress-Free

1. Look at your Calendar Weekly – Every weekend, I take a moment to review my calendar.  I check to see if there’s any appointments that I need to take note of and I make sure to make any adjustments to my daily schedule that I need to.  I know this should be a given, but several years ago I’d never even think to do this….so now it’s a part of my regular routine.
2. Schedule all appointments on the same day if possible. – Speaking of appointments, be sure to have a general day that you try to  keep your appointments on and schedule as many as possible on the same day so that you’re not out of the house or running like crazy too much.
3. Make a Daily To-Do List, Prioritize the top 3 things you need done.  OR Make a Daily Schedule and stick to it!  I’ve been wanting to be a strict scheduled person for years.  It hasn’t worked for me yet, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try again this year.  If I don’t do the full schedule, I’ll go with the daily to-do list.  In addition to helping my kids through their school days, I always work towards goals that I need done around the home as well.  Depending on our school load and how much they are able to work on their own that particular day, is how large my to-do list is.  Some days it feels like I get nothing done, other days, I get a ton done.
4. Lay out Your Clothes the Night Before – I do this one more for my husband than for myself, but when I know I’ll be in a time crunch I do it for me, too.  He has been known to wake me up, in a rush, complaining that we have no clean socks or underwear.  I can often drum up one clean pair, but I really like laying his clothes out for him, so I know he won’t wake me up in a panic the next morning.  Yes, he can do this himself, but his personality at home isn’t really one to do this on a regular basis, so I try to do it.  Do I always?  No…but it’s a goal.  Sometimes this requires staying up and doing a load of laundry.  That’s why it’s a good thing to start laying your clothes out about an hour or two before bed time, that way you can get anything into the washer that you’ll need for the following day if you happen to be a bit scatter brained on the laundry (like me).
5. Only Cook One Meal Per Day.  Seriously.  I don’t cook breakfast or lunch, even though I’m a stay at home mom.  It creates more dishes and more work.  I do feed them though, don’t worry!  LOL.  When I’m in a pinch, I’ll throw out some fruit or veggies or sandwiches, but when we need a change and I want to make sure we have protein, sometimes I’ll rely on foods we can cook in the microwave quickly, like Jimmy Dean® and State Fair® to provide me some easy to serve options.

Recently, we went to Walmart where I always shop for my Back to School conveniences and found the Jimmy Dean® Sausage, Egg & Cheese Croissant Sandwiches.  They made a great (and delicious, too!), quick breakfast for the kids.

For lunches or after school snacks, we’ll use the State Fair® Corn Dogs, for a quick option.

Here’s an extra fun tip for you.  This little tidbit isn’t exactly related to busy mornings, but another thing I like to do is when we go to the local community’s carnival and don’t want to spend money on the food stands, we will cook a bunch of State Fair® corndogs and wrap them in foil.  We will walk around with our corndogs that we paid a whole lot less for than everyone else out there.  It’s one way that we save money with our large family of 9!

Do you have a plan to make your morning routines a little more smooth?  Tell me about it in the comments below!