good start: 6 tips for making your day great

(photo: zastaviky.com)

okay. so i have been slacking over here. a lot. i know it. it’s been a weird summer. but it’s now a new month and i’m determined to get my mess back in gear. to that end, i’m making every effort to post (nearly?) every day. and you’ll probably see a lot of responses to a lot of random prompts that i know are good for me, but that i kind of hate writing. sigh. so without further ado, here are my NaBloPoMo best tips for getting my day off to a good start.

1. wake the F up!
it’s hard. i know. if you have been following along here, you know the struggle is real with our ridiculously early school-week schedules and our non-conforming body clocks. but somehow, some way, we are managing to get everyone up by about 6:30. for me, it takes a 6:15 alarm and the fear of total impending disaster if we don’t stick to the schedule. for Miss Girl, it takes a lot of cuddles and a carry downstairs to her breakfast seat. it sucks, but so be it. things do get better from here.

2. caffeinate!
i honestly don’t know what i’d do without our timer coffee pot. i have learned that mornings are much better when i come downstairs (now) in the dark and that caffeinated cuppa is already waiting for me. i get a few minutes to enjoy my first one while letting out the dogs and guessing what Miss Girl might want for breakfast. okay fine. i usually just pour her milk and wait for instructions. though i am completely not a planner, this small little act of getting things ready the night before makes everything so much better the next day.

now here’s where things get a little theoretical in the sense that sometimes they happen around here . . .

3. work it out.
i always, always feel 1,000% better if i work out in the morning it is done for the day and is one less thing to worry about having to fit in. the weather here in Atlanta is just about ready to cooperate with my fantasies of a morning run in non 1,000% humidity right after the bus sweeps Miss Girl off to school at 7:15. it’s been since June. it’s time, y’all.

4. write it up.
a close second in morning satisfaction is to be able to spend some time writing a blog post, getting an early start on some work or catching up on some emails . . . or even just make a list or pay some bills. the key here is productivity. i need to feel like i’ve gotten a at least a couple personal accomplishments under my belt before i go to work and all hell breaks loos (usually).

5. wear what works.
this one definitely takes pre-planning and i am so not there yet. and i don’t mean the kind of pre-planning that involves laying out outfits for the week. i used to do that in my 20s. in my 20s (and 30s), i also had jobs that required me to look a part: hello, young, female advertising lobbyist among old white men on The Hilll; hello cool, budding agency copywriter; oh hai, entrepreneur straddling morning networking, evening board meetings and actually getting shit done . . . it was exhausting. now that i’m a salty old creative director in a much smaller agency than what i’m used to, the dress code is far less stringent, but it doesn’t mean i don’t want to look good. i’m not a uniform girl for sure (wish i was!!), but struggle most every day with the tension between pulling out one of the 60 pairs of jeans in my closet and a t-shirt or shaving my legs and putting on an actual outfit. no matter how many style blogs i follow, this one is still hard for me, y’all! but i am working on developing a set of go-to looks.

6. never miss the smoothie!
so let’s do the math. i get up at 6:15 and lately leave the house at 8:45ish. i actually could not give a rat’s ass about eating between those times. eating for me is like a 10:00 thing. but they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. i have also read that you should eat something like 20 or 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up. wuuuuut?? so i do my best to balance. and i find that making a smoothie before i run out the door actually helps me feel really good. i can drink it before i get to my parking garage and a really balanced meal is in my system before 9:30 on most days. boom. here’s what i do — guaranteed, it is probably disgusting to smoothie aficianados:

1 banana ( i prefer them really ripe)
1 scoop Publix vanilla protein powder
1 cup spinach
¼ cup almond milk
¼ cup egg whites
1 cup ice
(and, if i’m feeling fancy: 1 Tbsp peanut or almond butter — it’s like a peanut butter/banana sandwich, y’all!)

how do you start your morning to make it amazing?