The order of the day.

A friend of mine is the most amazing hairdresser and always looks beautiful. She once said to me people say they don't have time in the morning to do their hair as they would like and she said to me "yes they do, it's just that they do things in the wrong order". She went on to explain that in the morning if I was to shower and pop velcro rollers through my hair then do everything else and take the rollers out last thing my hair would be perfect everyday. (well more or less!)

I can honestly say every morning when I get ready I think of Holly and what she said.  There are people who achieve so much everyday and people who achive nothing everyday and most of us in the middle somewhere. I think a lot of it has to do with the order of the day. Some clever use of this little phenomenon can make us much more productive.

How can we use order and timing to help us? I think it's the same as with everything else a little planning makes us see things more clearly and saves lots of time overall. Like putting dinner on early and you know it's cooking itself while you are busy with after school things and early baths. It is just cooking away and will be ready when you are. It's kind of an insurance policy against whatever might happen later in the day!

This also involves being realistic. I remember when the girls were babies. Late afternoon just was a bad time, I would be tired and if they were going to be grizzly this would be it. Evenings could be downright overwhelming.  I soon learned to have dinner on way before then so I did not have to try to cook dinner then. And I learned to bath the baby early and did that for a while until this period passed. Just to take the pressure off that time. But babies or not we have times that work mounts up and you hit a bottleneck of too many things in too short a time. Stress! Working out what those times are for you and deciding on "relocating" some things to another time just just save the day.

Planning soup or a crock pot casserole for the next day, knowing I may be late, tired or busy, I will part prepare it the night before. Have the meat thawed, maybe cut some vegies and a few things sitting there next to the waiting crock pot on the bench. Then even getting it going is easy.

If mornings are pure chaos the evening before becomes part of the order of your day. A few things set and ready to go the evening before can make it all go so much more smoothly!

In the morning get all your handmaidens working while you are doing the things you need to do. Then so much is accomplished and you feel like you're off to a wonderful start. Everything is happening and your helpers (washing machine, bread maker, crock pot etc) are all going flat out. it's a great head start.

When you plan your order of the day plan your breaks. You will do so much better and get much more done if you allow and make sure you have a morning tea break, lunch and an afternoon tea break. Instead of feeling burnt out, headachy and stressed you will feel calm and refreshed and ready to carry on. Seriously it took me ages to learn this. Flylady teaches to take regular breaks, admire what you've done, have a cup of tea then move on to the next thing. It truly works!

We all have days that just go wrong! But when every day goes wrong then re planning the order of the day might be in order! Set things going and do what you can while other things are happening and you just sail along nicely! If the weather is going to be sunny, just now in winter, I will do a load of washing in the evening so it is ready to hang out first thing. It gets more things out in that sunshine before it passes! That is how I helped the order of my day last night.

Have a lovely weekend. I don't think we have sun for long so I'm taking full advantage of it! xxx