Morning Routine

One of the most helpful things I have found is having a morning routine. It can have one thing, say making your bed, or a few things. Either way, it is a great way to get your day started as it is consistent, starts your day with at least something clean and looking great, and gets you going.

My morning routine has a few more things on it as I am home most mornings and don't have to rush out of the house. Plus I really don't like doing a ton of stuff at night minus cleanup from dinner and help Luke clean up his toys. Since being pregnant and getting further along, I pretty much crash on the couch after dinner and just leave any clutter or cleanup for the next day.

Here is My Morning Routine:
Wake up, brush teeth, take a shower, and get dressed
Make our bed
Straighten up our bedroom
Start a load of laundry
Straighten up living room
Straighten up kitchen
Dishes/dishwasher (load/unload)
Wipe down kitchen
Make breakfast

It might look like a lot, but it really isn't. Making the bed takes all of about 2 minutes. Straightening up rooms takes a few minutes as we don't leave our house that cluttered. Starting a load of laundry takes a couple of minutes. There may be a few dishes to take care of (if any) and unloading/reloading the dishwasher takes a couple of minutes. Wiping down the kitchen takes a minute or two as there isn't usually a mess since we clean up after dinner. We keep breakfast really simple at our house - cereal, oatmeal, fruit, milk, so it takes hardly any time to make breakfast.

I would say the entire morning routine including a quick shower and getting dressed takes less than 30 minutes. The best part is it makes my house a little easier to manuever all day. When I go to the kitchen, there aren't dishes in the way or yucky counters. When I go to the living room, there are places to sit and room for Luke to play. A load of laundry is going and ready to be put in the dryer early in the morning. It's really nice.