I feel like moms and firefighters might have something in common.

Firefighters wake up to blaring alarms, rush to get dressed, and then speed off to fight a blazing fire.

Sound familiar? Yup, not far from the typical toddler / preschool mom morning.

So how can we avoid the “fire emergency on 5th street” vibes and have more “bossa-nova-with-a-coffee-in-hand” kind of mornings?

In this article, I’m giving you 5 ways to win your mornings. Ideas that are fresh like a cup of coffee to help you get a better start to your day (and be a happier mom because of it!).

(Note: I’m writing this after a chaotic morning in our house—I was way too tired, my kids got up way too early, and we were all a bit stressed—but I definitely have more good mornings than bad. Below you’ll find what I’ve learned along the way.)

Table of Contents

1. #1 – Start the Night Before
2. #2 – Have Something to Look Forward To
3. #3 – Clear Your Head
4. #4 – Get Meals Sorted
5. #5 – Automate Your Morning
6. Conclusion

#1 – Start the Night Before

The secret to better mornings is to start them the night before.

Instead of waking up, then trying to figure out what to wear, what to eat, and what to do first, you could:

• Set out an outfit the night before, then just throw it on the next day (I do this most nights for myself and sometimes for my kids)
• Wash and dry your hair before bed instead of in the morning (I do this because it feels better to wake up with clean, shiny hair instead of dirty hair)
• Prep breakfasts or stock up on pre-made breakfast foods so you can roll out of bed and eat
• Set the coffee machine (or set up a coffee station)
• Go to bed at a good time! (This should go without saying, but you will never have easy mornings until you get enough sleep)

Even if you’re not a night person, you can start this after dinner or even sometime during the afternoon. The key is to get everything ready before the morning comes, to save your brain power and energy (and just make things easier overall).

#2 – Have Something to Look Forward To

For many people, the struggle of mornings is the temptation to just stay in bed until everything becomes an emergency. You know those days, when you throw eggs and juice in your kids’ general direction, and they end up running toward the school bus only half-dressed?

Getting up just a little bit earlier can make everything better. But how do you make yourself get up, when your bed is so cozy and inviting?

My suggestion? Prepare some fun things for your morning that give you that little extra push to get out of bed. Here are some ideas:

• Prepare coffee and set out a creamer (so it’s ready to consume as soon as you open your eyes)
• Give yourself a treat, like a favorite breakfast food, candy, whatever you want! (this gives you extra motivation to get up before the kids so they don’t see you eating it!)
• Put out a book you want to read but never get time to delve into
• Prepare a yoga mat and an exercise video (if you’re the kind of person that’s motivated by exercise!)
• Watch a show you like, or give yourself a social media break even! Just put your phone somewhere far away so you have to get out of bed
• In the winter, I like to have a warm sweatshirt, or something fuzzy and warm to put on (and I keep it right next to my bed)

So what would excite you enough to help you get out of bed in the morning? And how could you make it easier for yourself to get out of bed in the morning (Or harder to stay in bed?)

#3 – Clear Your Head

Okay, now you’re up and out of bed. Here’s the next thing I recommend to do before the day really gets started.

Often, our minds are swirling with different ideas, bad dreams we had, random things we noticed in the kitchen that need to be taken care of, and just a general fog from the morning.

I really think that the absolute best way you can start your day is to clear that fog and get clarity about what you need to do (and want to do) during your day.

Here are some great ways to get clarity:

• Free-write or journal your thoughts and work through what’s on your mind
• Make a brain dump of everything in your head that you need to remember
• Make a short list of tasks that you want to finish that day (or set a few key priorities)
• Read something that inspires you (I read my Bible—you could pick anything that grounds you or inspires you to be better)
• Plan out your day

I’m not saying to do ALL these things. You’ll figure out the few simple actions that will help you get clear in your mind and have some sort of plan for the day. I don’t take much time on this, but it helps me avoid that scattered feeling that I would get otherwise.

#4 – Get Meals Sorted

Out of all the things you need to worry about on a typical morning, meals should be the last thing on your mind. This is one of those things that’s way easier to plan in advance than try to decide every single day, 3 times a day.

You can decide a couple of breakfast options, prepare them, and then let your family choose what they like. Or stock your fridge with a lot of things that are easy to eat and prepare, and make it easy to prepare breakfasts for your family (if they can’t do it for themselves).

I also recommend planning out meals for the whole week (you can use my simple planning system if you don’t have one), so you don’t have to constantly wonder what you’re going to have for dinner that night.

Without that worry of what you’re going to eat, or the stress of having to cook everything from scratch every morning, your mornings can become way more calm and fun.

(Obviously, this has to work for your family. I know that there are more than a few picky eaters out there, and it might be difficult to make this work. But if you think creatively, there is always something you can do to make it easier or less stressful for yourself and your family.)

#5 – Automate Your Morning

My final tip is to use every trick in the book to automate parts of your morning. Automation sounds super technical, but it really just means “make it automatic.”

And there are so many ways to do that:

• Create a morning routine that you always follow (so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every morning)
• Coordinate your wardrobe so everything mostly goes together (that way you can spend less time finding outfit ideas—unless you love picking out outfits, in which case, don’t worry about this)
• Build automatic habits, like watering your plants every time you boil water for coffee (I do this, and I almost never forget to water my plants!)
• Make a checklist that you follow in the mornings (You don’t have to do everything on the checklist, but it’s there to jog your memory of everything you might want to do)
• Use apps, alarms, and reminders to take some of the load off of your brain (I like using Apple Shortcuts—I included it in my list of top productivity apps for moms.) I even have an alarm for when I need to take my 3-year-old to the toilet before daycare, because if I don’t time it right we’ll be late.

Every little thing you can automate (whether by habit or using tech) will take one more thing off of your brain, leaving you more mental space to tackle the other important things of the day (or just love on your kids more).

Conclusion

In this article, I gave you 5 ways to win your mornings and have a more calm and enjoyable start to your day.

Here’s the recap:

• Start the night before, by preparing as much as you can before you go to bed
• Have something fun waiting for you in the morning to motivate you to get up
• Clear your head first thing in the morning by writing out your thoughts or creating a plan for your day
• Plan meals and have breakfasts ready so you can just eat and enjoy your morning
• Automate as much as you can, whether that’s building routines or using tech to assist you

Have you gotten a new idea for your mornings? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

And if you’re interested in more ways to make your life easier, check out this article next: 9 Productivity Rules I Follow Every Day