spend less time getting ready in the morning

It normally takes me half an hour to an hour…

Last Tuesday I stayed up to watch the Australia vs Italy world cup match, and set my alarm till 4am to get ready to catch a plane for work travel.

Something didn’t quite work out, and I woke up at 5am to the sound of the cab driver knocking on the front door.

I managed to get ready in about 5 minutes (and I was totally ready, I had washed my hair and straightened it the night before, I had packed all my meeting notes and things, and breakfast was on the plane so I didn’t need that or to take my insulin). When I got into the cab, there was already $10 on the meter :0 damn! I saved my work money by sharing a cab on the way to the airport on the way back though, so they won out overall.

Hurrah! I have proved to myself that I can get ready in an hour and a half when I need to wash and dry my hair, and an hour when I don’t need to wash my hair. Thus, if I cut off all my hair, I’d be able to sleep until 7:30 every weekday. However, I have no plans to do that. I guess this proves I value my hair more than I value sleep, huh?

Anyway. Done.

I think I’ll be able to check this one off soon, and feel good about it! While I’ve had a few bad days, mostly I’ve been able to get ready in an hour and half or less. This morning I got out of bed at 7:20 (such a good sleep! And we had the windows open and it was too, too, TOO comfortable under the covers), and was ready to go by 8:25. And that included eating a good breakfast, preparing and packing lunch, and going on a longish walk with my dog.

I’ll check this off at the end of this week as long as I continue to be able to get ready in an hour and a half or less.

New routine started today. Adam has to get up at four to get to work by five, so, for me, getting up at 6:30 seems positively like sleeping in. Also, when it’s just me there in the morning, my subconscious gives me a kick in the butt and lets me know that I can’t be lazy, I can’t sleep ten extra minutes, I can’t wind up still wearing my pajamas at 8:30 and expect Adam to help me come up with an outfit or iron a shirt for me or get my lunch ready. It’s all me. And when I do have to rely on myself completely, I really am at my best. Observe:

Got up at 6:38. I did all the usual things: showered, had granola and ricemilk for breakfast, dried hair, put on makeup and jewelry, got dressed, took dog out, fed dog (well, I tried—he was moody and didn’t want his food), brushed teeth, got lunch together.

But I also had time to: get car payment ready to mail, floss teeth, put away clean dishes in dishwasher and reload dishwasher with dirty dishes, make the bed, do 25 sit-ups, find a necklace I’d been looking for, straighten up the bedroom, put my new “smoothing milk” in my hair to get rid of some of the usual frizz, leave a message on Adam’s cell phone saying that I hoped he wasn’t too sleepy on his first day of his new schedule, and drink half a cup of coffee.

And the time I finished all of this? 8:08. Still over 20 minutes before I needed to leave for work!

This gives me hope that I’ll be able to fit more exercise into my mornings. I’m thinking about getting up at 6 to go running.

A cold and sunny Monday morning. I awoke - fully! - from a dream that involved not only my car being stolen (with all my CDs in it!), but also my finding out that I worked for some sort of religious reactionary lobbying group. Ack!

Total time getting ready today was an hour and twentyish minutes. I was finished by 8:15 and had time to play with my dog, sweep the kitchen floor, read a section of the Sunday paper, and write a note to Adam before I had to leave for work. Remember, self, that this is a good way to start the week.

The biggest timesaver was having my clothes in mind when I was drying my hair, and then being able to find them when I finished with my hair. Too often I’ll come up with something to wear and then discover that the shirt or the pair of pants in question has disappeared into a Wardrobe Black Hole.

Once again, I let my dream continue through the sounding of my alarm clock. There was something about how I would become paralyzed if I stood up while it was ringing. Adam turned it off twice. I finally got out of bed at 7:07. I used to be so good at hopping out of bed as soon as my alarm went off (and sometimes a few minutes before). I don’t know how I’ve managed to change that habit in only the last few months.

Beginning at 7:07, I took a shower, ate breakfast, fed my dog, dried my hair, brushed my teeth, flossed my teeth, put on makeup, got dressed, walked my dog, and took the newspapers out to the recycling bin. Time leaving the house: 8:27! Time in to work: 8:59. Not bad. I didn’t need to pack a lunch today because one of my work friends is bringing lasagna florentine for a couple of us.

In the future, though, I won’t get dressed in my work clothes before taking my dog out, especially after it’s just rained for 24 hours. I didn’t really need to have the heels of my red shoes sinking into the mud at 8:15 AM.

This morning, I finally dragged myself out of bed a few minutes before 7. I was having a disorienting dream before that—something about following people through an oddly grassy version of Tokyo. Actually, dreams figure heavily into why I often don’t get up on time. I allow the sound of the alarm to be a part of the dream (a fire alarm, a telephone), or somebody in the dream convinces me that I don’t have to wake up and get out of bed. Or, sometimes, I’m not really “awake” when I wake up, and I’m able to lie there, half-conscious, convincing myself that I’m already at work, or that I have a matter transporter in the living room that’s going to take me there.

Anyway, I got up, had breakfast, read one of the sections of the Sunday newspaper that I’d neglected on Sunday, took my dog out, and then got ready the rest of the way. I packed a quick lunch before I left. I was outta there by 8:32. Not bad!

I don’t have a CLUE what I’m really doing from 6:30 AM to 8:30 AM. And it’s even more baffling when 8:30 hits and I still haven’t packed a lunch. I should be able to do the following in far less than 2 hours:

have breakfast
walk my dog
feed my dog
shower
dry and brush my hair
put on makeup
get dressed
brush my teeth
prepare and pack lunch
get necessary books, papers, laptop together
scrape ice on car (sometimes)

What this list doesn’t include is “standing in the closet staring at my clothes and wondering what on Earth I’m going to wear that looks decent and is appropriate for the weather.” I have so many clothes in my closet that I haven’t worn in years—plaid button-down, baggy-fitting shirts from college and other such outdated things. I should get those out of my closet. All they do is annoy and distract me. Also, if I could manage to mentally plan out a couple of decent outfits on, say, Sunday afternoon, I could possibly sleep a little bit later on weekday mornings.

I have got ready in 30 minutes, but i’m being a perfectionist today! Oh well , somedays you just have to chill out and take it easy!

It was relaxing though! Okay let’s be realistic. If i could get ready by 2.30pm i feel that i will have acheived this goal. Lets face it it’s not possible for a woman to get ready in under and hour!