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I don’t even want to type out these words because it seems so bait and braggy but I am such a morning person. I’m the gal my friends will talk about as being like ugh you get up so early how do you do it? The idea of waking up any later than 8:30AM creates a little bit of fear inside of me. Any time that starts with 9AM or a higher number is considered way too late, a massive lie-in for me.
But if there’s anything I’ve learned as a proper morning person, early bird, whatever you wanna call it, is how to make the most of your time in the mornings and how to get the most out of an early start – whatever an early start may be for you. It could be 1PM. No judgement.
So whatever time you consider ‘morning’ to be for you, I thought I’d share the things I’ve learned along the way about getting the most out of the time you have in your mornings.
keeping time
This has got to be the most important part, because you can’t make the most of your time if you don’t keep track of that time. This is where the good old, reliable watch comes in. The one I’m wearing here is part of ADEXE London‘s brand new Miniature Sistine collection, and I could not be more in love.
Full disclosure, ADEXE London is one of those brands I’ve always seen around on Instagram and always loved and dreamed about, so working on this blog post for them as part of a collaboration is a literal dream come true.
One thing that I absolutely have to do in the morning, one of the very first things I do which is probably weird to a lot of people, is put on my jewellery. People literally tell me they have never seen me without it, that’s because it’s on me every single waking moment. And this is where the watch comes in.
And yes I know we have phones that tell us the time but in all honesty, when I started wearing watches again – normal or electronic – I realised how bloody annoying and inconvenient it is having to check your phone for the time. If I’m in the kitchen making food and I’ve left my phone in my room or it’s on the counter lost underneath the food I’m trying to prepare, it’s a hassle to go get it or fish it out. If I have my hands full with something, it’s annoying having to pick up my phone and then contort my hand around to the side or the bottom of the screen to press a button, especially when everything about my including my hands is tiny and my phone is huge. I forgot the ease of life with a watch, it’s just on your wrist so all you need to do is give it a quick glance whilst you’re in the middle of something and your hands are full.
It’s obviously the most important thing to keep an eye on the time in the morning, and you even save yourself some time (every second counts!) by having your watch there on your wrist ready to look at instead of looking for your phone and turning the screen on. If you know you have to leave the house at a certain time, you need to make sure you know how much time you have so you can gage how fast you need to get ready or if you need to skip any part of your routine to leave on time, or better yet when you look at your watch and see you have a lot more time than you thought so you can relax and do nothing before you leave.
The brand new Miniature Sistine collection watches start at £79 and I’m v happs to tell you that you can get 15% off with my discount code ‘ YASMINSTEFANIE15 ‘
the dreaded alarm and the risky snooze button
I used to be that person who could get out of bed after two alarm that were five minutes apart. The purpose of my first one was to wake me up and let me know I had to get up very soon, and the purpose of having a second one was to give me a few minutes in bed to adjust and fully wake up or have a lil snooze and rest my eyes again so I didn’t have to get up so abruptly, then I’d very easily get up after that second alarm.
I’ve changed. I’ve become that person with a dozen alarms. Except it’s worse because I still only set myself my two alarms that are five minutes apart, then every time they go off I proceed to set it for five minutes later, go back to sleep, wake up five minutes later, and set the alarm for another five minutes time. And I repeat this for a good 30-60 minutes.
I know a lot of us need a lot of alarms to go off before we can get up, so I’ve found a good way to combat this. It probably sounds disgusting to you but don’t knock it til you’ve tried it. I set my initial alarm for at least good half hour before I actually need to get up. That way, I can keep giving myself ‘just five more minutes’ multiple times, but still then get out of bed for the time I needed to get up and start getting ready.
There is an asterisk here with this one though – if you know you won’t be able to get back to sleep in those five minutes a time (or however long of a gap you leave between) then this probably won’t work for you, but I don’t feel any more or less tired than I would’ve if I had just slept for that full half an hour with no alarms going off and then woke up and got up to one alarm right at the very end. Worth a try though, lets you get the snooze effect whilst still actually getting up when you originally intended to.
get the chores out of the way
I’m a bit of a freak about my bed. Like, even if I didn’t make it all day long I’d have to make it at night before getting back into it to go to sleep. Except I would’t let that happen because I cannot look at my unmade bed or be in my room knowing it’s not made. It needs to be perfect and in tact, so making my bed is the ultimate chore I need to get out of the way ASAP rocky in the mornings.
Your chore could be something else. You could have multiple. It could be feeding the dog, making lunch for yourself or someone else, taking the bins out, putting a wash on, unloading the dishwasher. Whatever it is, make sure it is one of the first (if not the first) thing you do when you wake up, because then you get the shit stuff out of the way and can use the rest of your time in the morning for yourself.
I will always make my bed the second I get out of it (when I’m at uni – when I’m at home and my mum is home and I ask nicely she’ll sometimes go make it for me lol cute thanks love you ana) unless I really need to wee. And like, only if I absolutely cannot hold it and will literally wet myself if I don’t go wee before I make my bed. A bit TMI lol sorry, but I’m that dedicated to the cause that I’ll almost always power through and make my bed first.
So power through too, maybe not to my extremes because I am so scared that one day I will not make it if ykno what I mean, and get the annoying lil chores out of the way as quickly as you can so that you can maximise the rest of your morning.
prioritise
This is a bit of an obvious one but think about what you want to make the most time for in your morning routine so you can time everything else around it. And it doesn’t have to be a necessity like breakfast (do most people even have time for breakfast tbh?). It can be something like standing in front of your wardrobe for half an hour trying different outfits before you finally choose the one, it can be carving out an hour to do a full face of full glam makeup – stuff that people might tell you that you don’t need to do in the morning.
In all honesty I’ve become the gal who doesn’t really wear much makeup anymore, but I will have my days where I’ll get up earlier to spend my time putting actual makeup on as a treat. I don’t really have one big task in my morning routine, just a few little things I want to do. Like, absolutely must do because I don’t want to leave out a single one. So I know exactly what order to do what in, how much time I should take on each, what kind of time I should be at during each stage. It sounds a lot deeper than it is, but I literally just check point myself at different points in the morning to know how much time I’m taking and how much time I have left.
be kind to your future self
By which I mean do stuff the night before so you’ll have more time in the morning. Pack your bag, make your lunch, decide your outfit and lay it out somewhere. Anything that you can do the night before to save you some time in the morning should be done. Even if it feels like a task that night, it’ll feel like even more of a task in the morning when you’re likely on a tight schedule as it is. Try on your outfit the day before if you’ve never worn it before just incase you don’t like it once it’s on then you’re stuck with no time in the morning to think of a back up.
I’m trying to think of my own personal morning routine before uni or the gym and if I’ve already packed my bag and, if I’m going to uni, planned my outfit and made my lunch, the only things I need to do in the morning are make the bed (see above xo), brush my teeth and do my skincare routine. Obviously put on the clothes that I’ve left out but that takes seconds as opposed to at least fifteen minutes of trying outfits and hating those things together and changing the top five times and the bottoms three times and changing bras because certain ones go with certain tops. The amount of time you save by just preparing the little things the night before really adds up, then you get some extra time in the morning to make a nice breakfast or put more effort into your makeup or just sit and chill for a moment.
Hopefully this post has helped you out a lil bit and you can find some new ways to make the most of your time in the mornings, give yourself more time and maximise that extra time!
Remember you can shop ADEXE London’s brand new Mini Sistine collection here and get 15% off all their watches with the code ‘ YASMINSTEFANIE15 ‘
♡
Yasmin
post in collaboration with ADEXE London who have kindly gifted me the watch. all words and opinions are my own. read more in my disclaimer.
