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Diana Rene: 0:06

You're listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast, a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene, and in 2017, I had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home. Okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show.

Diana Rene: 0:49

Welcome to another episode of The Decluttered Mom podcast. I am excited to talk to you today because I want to just offer up a reminder of something that is so simple yet makes such a huge difference in the mornings in our house, and I know many, many students of mine have said this has been a game changer for them also. And again, it's just a really simple thing. It's a really simple switch. It's something that you have to do already. It's just doing it at a different time to make your mornings go easier, and that simple thing is just to have everything that you need to walk out of the door in the morning prepped the night before and by the door. So what this looks like in a practical way for us is, as you know, I work from home because I have my own business. However, most of the time I would say 95% of the time I go and work at coffee shops in the morning, especially because if I don't, there is too much to distract me at home and there are too many things vying for my attention in my own home that I just am not as productive. And so I know that if I go drop my kids off at school and I go right to a coffee shop, I'm going to be like a hundred times more productive, and so I get myself ready as if I'm going to an office, and that has been really, really helpful for me. So for me, what that means is having my work bag ready, having my laptop ready, having it charged and in the bag, and also having the laptop charger in the bag, having my notebook, having my pen, having my highlighter, having my water bottle already filled in the work bag, ready to go, having my electrolyte powder mix that I mix into the water in the work bag ready to go. Basically, anything that I'm going to need while I am out of the house working at the coffee shop is in the bag, ready to go, and that is put by the door. That way, in the morning I only have to worry about getting myself ready, doing a few finishing touches on things. For the girls, grabbing that and going and not being like, oh, shoot, I got to go get my water, okay, I got to grab this. Oh, get in the car. And be like, oh, I got to grab the laptop charger All of those things can happen.

Diana Rene: 3:16

Obviously, we all know and they're more likely to happen the forgetfulness and the trying to remember and the running back into the house is going to happen eight more times if we do not have something prepared the night before. And so I just know that, even though in the evenings I'm exhausted and a lot of times I just want to sit down and I just want to scroll TikTok or I just want to like, not think or do anything, I know that just taking five or 10 minutes to do that is going to make my mornings better, and if I have a good morning I am much more likely to have a good day. I don't know about you. I really try hard to think of the day in like quarters, so like if I have a tough part of the day, I don't like blow the whole day. But I have found that if I am able to like just feel on in the morning and feel productive, I just it tends to follow through with the whole day. I struggle less with trying to like chase the dopamine by opening or picking up my phone a thousand times and like I just feel more on and feel more productive, I guess would be the most the best word to use here. So that is for me Now for my kids, this is something that is a great thing to get them involved in as as early as age four-ish, maybe even a little bit earlier, but they would definitely need help.

Diana Rene: 4:47

But they could at least start doing it with you so they know that this is their responsibility and they need to do this. So for my kids, what that looks like is making sure that their folders are in their backpack and that I signed their folders and that they have snack in their backpack. They filled up a water bottle and put it in their backpack. They are not currently at least, I am in charge of their lunch. That may change at some point. We kind of go through phases. Sometimes they want to pack their own lunch, and I'm good with that. Other times I just do it.

Diana Rene: 5:26

I don't think there's any right or wrong answer, but if that, if you are looking to offload something or give them something that they can feel responsible for, lunches are a good one, especially if you have like parameters around it so they're not just putting in like you know, nerds, gummies and apple juice, you know, because that's exactly what I would have done as a kid, but what you, what we do, is I make the lunches and then I just put them into the fridge without their ice pack and that way in the morning I can just grab them out of the fridge, pop the two ice packs in and we're good to go. That's really the only thing like outside of helping them with, like, their hair, um, that I have to do in the morning for them. But besides that I'm running through this in my head. So they do snack, they do water, they do their folders. If they have any homework, they make sure it's done in their folders the night before again, so that way they're not scrambling around.

Diana Rene: 6:32

We know, on the specific days that they have library, that they have to make sure they have their library book. If they borrowed one from the school library the week before, that's in the backpack. If they have library that they have to make sure they have their library book. It's a borrowed one from the school library the week before, that's in the backpack. If they have PE and they're not wearing their tennis shoes, then they need to put those into the backpack, which, by the way, you know how it's so funny, how, uh, like, if you're outside the US, I'm sure this is similar is that different regions of the US have different names for things and I grew up with tennis shoes, and that I grew up in Michigan.

Diana Rene: 7:11

Now I'm in Colorado and I've been here for like 16 years or something and they're not tennis shoes here, they are sneakers, and that is one I still haven't really been able to come around on, and my kids call them tennis shoes because of me, so they're going to have to deal with that too. However, one that I have come around on maybe because I don't say tennis shoes as often as pop and soda, because I grew up with it being pop and when I moved to Colorado I realized nobody here calls it pop, it is soda. And I also remember when I went on spring break down to Gulf Shores, alabama, in high school they called it Coke. Like everything was Coke. Even if you weren't getting Coke, it was all Coke. So I don't know random ADHD brain side moment for the conversation this morning.

Diana Rene: 8:07

So if they have PE, then their tennis shoes are in their backpack. If they have an afterschool club or if they have practice after school and we will not be home in time, they make sure that stuff is either in their backpack or it's in the car. And so there are, it feels like as they get older, there are like a thousand more things that they have to make sure that they have to get ready, and that can feel a little overwhelming. And so just make a list. Make a list and put it wherever they keep their backpacks, and that way they have it that they can kind of go through it in the evening. My girls usually do this right before they get ready for bed, um, so they just look at the list and they go through and they're like, okay, I got to get a snack and they go get a sack and then they move to the next item on the list and then that way they make sure that they have everything.

Diana Rene: 9:04

When they were a little bit smaller Um, they're eight and 11 now, but when they were a little bit smaller even well, no, not last year, but probably the year before we did like a verbal call out every day. I had a list on the door, like the door that led to our garage where we would leave to go to school, and I would stand there when we were, they were all packed, ready to go to walk out the door and I would say like water, and they would have to say check, and I would say there, when we were, they were all packed, ready to go to walk out the door and I would say like water, and they would have to say check. And I would say lunchbox, and they would say check, so like that is an option. And we did that for years, like years, and that was what we needed to do to make sure that we all had what we were supposed to have. Now, at their ages, I don't feel like I need to do that, because they have the list and they are both very good about just following the list and making sure that everything on the list they have, and if they don't, they tell me like it's. Like. Oh, mom, I am supposed to bring my library book tomorrow, but I left it in my desk at school, so, like, that's already in there. So we have those conversations and we're able to make sure that we're on the same page and they knock on wood. Now that I'm recording this, I'm sure I'm going to get a call from the school being like hey, they forgot so and so something you know, but they have not forgotten anything this year and so it's worked really well.

Diana Rene: 10:28

But I think either option is just having them, depending on how old or how responsible or mature they are is just having them go through the list, or having them go through the list, but then verbally calling out before you walk out the door can also be a very helpful thing. So we have to do this anyway. Right, we have to bring the items that we need for our day anyway, so we might as well do it at a time where we're a little less stressed. Yes, we are probably more tired, but we're not in a rush in the evening, right? Well, I mean, after the kids are in bed, we're not as much in a rush hardly ever. We at least have a little bit more time. We don't have to have. We don't have a specific time. We have to be out the door in the evening.

Diana Rene: 11:16

And so, because we have to do this anyway, just doing this one small tweak and moving some of those things that you get ready in the morning, in the evening, is going to make mornings just move smoother. And that does not mean that there will never be a hiccup in the morning. That does not mean that you're never going to like, hit the snooze a couple times too many and everyone's going to be running late and feeling frazzled. It just means that you are less likely to have a chaotic morning, and anytime we can provide ourselves that, the better, right? Because things feel chaotic a lot of the time, and so if we can just feel a little less chaotic most of the time, then I call that a win. So I hope this is helpful. I hope this is a good reminder and I will talk to you next week.

Diana Rene: 12:06

Thanks for hanging out and listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world if you could write a review or share this episode with a friend or your Instagram stories. And if you're on Instagram, be sure to follow me at thedeclutteredmom and send me a DM to say hi. I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. I hope you'll come back next week and hang out with us again.