How long do you spend getting ready for school or work every day? Do you wake up two hours before you have to leave just so you can look perfect before you go? Or are you the girl who wakes up, throws on yesterday’s jeans, brushes your teeth, and is out the door? What if we were neither? How great would it be to be clean, look nice, and be ready to leave just 30 minutes after waking up?

How to do it

Do everything you can the night before. Lay out your clothes, make sure your bag is ready to go, and put your healthy lunch in a bag in the fridge. Take your shower at night if you can. Some people are morning shower people, but try taking it at night for a week and you may never switch back! If you have oily or hard-to-manage hair, it may help save time to bathe and shave at night, then just wash your hair in the morning.

Forget snoozing. How much more rested are you after hitting snooze seven times? Chances are, none, and you’ve just wasted a bunch of precious morning time! Instead of hitting snooze several times, then finally groggily pulling yourself out of bed, try jumping out of bed the second the alarm goes off and jumping into the shower (if you’re a morning shower person). If you tend to set your alarm early, so that you have “time” to hit snooze several times, forget that! Set it for when you need to get up, and you’ll get better sleep until then.

Make your water slightly cooler than optimal. I’m not talking icicles here; I mean make the water temperature slightly cooler than what your ideal temperature normally is. You can do this in the shower, or just at the sink when washing your face. This will alert your senses without freezing you out.

Try ten minute hair. If you spend more than ten minutes on your hair for anything other than special occasions, you’re spending too much time! If you’re blessed with curly hair, comb it, scrunch it, spray it, and leave it alone. If you have thin and straight hair like me, dry it, comb it, smooth crème over the flyaways, and consider it done! Remember that ponytails are always classic!

Only put on one outfit. Hopefully you’ve laid out your outfit the night before, but even if you didn’t, choose one outfit, put it on, and stick with it! We often spend so much time trying on several outfits, just to end up wearing the first thing we put on.

Keep jewelry simple. Sometimes less really is more. Try pairing small silver hoops with a simple silver necklace that will go with most outfits, to save the time of searching for unique pieces every day. Save the really fun stuff for the weekends.

Minimize the make-up routine. If you have a great complexion, count your blessings and skip the make-up altogether. If you’re like the rest of the world, then put on make-up, but remember that if it takes longer than five minutes to apply, it’s too much for a normal day. Try this instead: Use tinted moisturizer. This doubles as a moisturizer and a foundation, plus it really evens out skin. It’s fast and easy. Once you have that in place, apply small amounts of blush and neutral eye shadow, then put on a sheer powder over that. Add mascara and lip gloss, and you’re done! Save the elaborate make-up jobs for going out with friends.

How to use the extra time

Now we’re ready to leave, and since we’ve used the above tips (and thought of things on our own) to get ready faster, we have extra time! How should we spend it?

The first and most obvious thing most of us will think of is to sleep in later! While that’s a cozy and tempting thought, I have some better ideas which will help us look out for and give to our families, like Miriam did in Exodus 2:1-10.

Spend time in God’s word. He should be the most important part of our day, and our day will go much smoother if we focus our minds and hearts on Him first thing every morning. Focusing on Him will also make us more compassionate toward others, so our hearts will be open to their needs.

Help with––and eat––breakfast. Even if your family just has cereal in the mornings (and there’s nothing wrong with that!), you can help by putting out cereal, milk, sugar, and setting the table. Once breakfast is over, you can help clean-up by putting your dishes in the dishwasher and nicely encouraging other family members to do the same. If you don’t eat breakfast, this is the time to start. Not only does it help you mentally throughout the day, but it also is helpful in controlling your weight.

Teach your family about His love. If you have younger siblings, read a devotional to them during breakfast each morning. If your family is closer to your age, or older than you, choose a verse that stood out to you during your solo study, and tell them about the verse and what it means to you. You could then ask them what that verse means to them, or ask them to tell you about another verse they are thinking about today.

Help everyone get out the door. Maybe your mom needs to turn on the dishwasher before she leaves. Load it up and turn it on for her. Or maybe a sibling lost their hat. Help them find it or let them borrow one of yours. Help the mornings run smoother by not only taking care of yourself, but by also helping your family with their needs.

Keep in mind

Nobody’s perfect, so there will be mornings when we wake up late, rush around to get ready, and fly out the door with barely enough time to slip into class before the bell rings, but that should not be our mornings all the time. We need to work on making our mornings run smoother and more efficiently so we can be calm, help our families, and let His love shine through us.

It’s nice to look pretty, but we need to be careful not to let that be our priority every day. We should make ourselves look presentable, but not to the point that we’re neglecting our own spiritual needs and the needs of other people. Remember that “charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord shall be praised” (Proverbs 31:30).

By Davonne Parks