Cleaning is not one of my favorite things to do. I enjoy it enough at work, but once I get home I like to think that I save up all my cleaning for at work. What I’m trying to say is that at home I’m a disorganized mess and everything is dirty.

 

I hate doing laundry. I’m only able to see the carpet in my room a couple times a year. And I had to clean space on my desk to be able to write on a notepad today (some day I’ll clear enough space to put my laptop back on my desk.

Today, though, I spent some of my day off cleaning. I didn’t set many lofty goals about it I just put on some music (Hamilton, guys, if you haven’t heard of it do yourselves a favor and go listen to it) and just started picking things up. I did put a notepad and pen on my bed and kept going back to that to write down a to do list, a shopping list, and a list of all the things I’d like to be able to do in a morning before going to work.

That last one is the one that I’m hoping really helps me get better in this new year. I have this bad habit of being late. For everything, but mostly for work. I know how long it takes me to drive there, but I still can’t seem to get myself out of bed, into clothes, and out the door in time to get to work on time. I’ve slid by with it because I’m the boss (I know I’m setting a bad example, I have things to work on that’s why I’m doing this) and because I get right to work as soon as I get in. I don’t waste time in the back fixing my hair or checking my facebook (I hate facebook), I just clock in, get my uniform on and go to work. But it doesn’t make a good mental start to the day to be late all the time. It honestly makes me feel like I suck to be late all the time. And then I feel worse in the morning, but I haven’t known how to fix it. Because it feels like I’m doing my best in the morning, but time just isn’t cooperating with me.

My solution (hopefully!) for this comes from a friend of mine that says he has alarms set on his phone for every task he needs to do to keep him moving from one thing to the next on time. So I wrote down all the things I’d like to do to start the day well and then put generous times next to them. I rounded to the next 5 minute mark to make it easy and ended up with an approximate 70 minute morning ritual. Then I started from 10 minutes before I have to leave to get to work on time and started counting backwards to get my wake up time (which is 5 minutes before my get out of bed time).

So now I just have to test it. I used sleepyti.me to calculate when I should be falling asleep. I’m putting a lot of focus on this because right now it’s causing me a lot of stress. I’m hoping that this system will keep me on task and get me to work early tomorrow (I left that 10 minute cushion for clearing off my car in the event of snow and any driving delays).

I’m getting close to my bedtime now and I need to put my purse back together and set out my clothes for tomorrow. Do you have any cleaning tips to share? Any bedtime/wake up rituals that have helped you get sleep and be where you need to be in the morning?