If you live in Lagos, Nigeria, then you should be very familiar with the most pronounced feature of the city. The daily rush that goes on all round the clock. Monday mornings are especially worse. Everyone is leaving at the same time to their different places of work, traffic in turn builds up on major roads. On days like this, if you fail to leave your house on time – I mean really early, you’ll be tagged a late-comer at your place of work.
Even if you live in Lagos, you can still be an early bird, and we’re here to show you how.
Here are simple hacks that will help you leave home on time:
Have everything ready the night before
Have you looked back to see the pattern that takes places each morning, that makes you chronically late? You probably set aside a certain amount of time to get set, but end up spending time searching for what to wear, arranging the files that needs to be submitted or washing the dishes you left the previous night.
If you have everything ready to go well in advance, you won’t have a bunch of hurdles standing between you and getting where you need to be. Every single night, lay out clothes you’re going to wear, complete all tasks that you usually leave for morning, prepare your breakfast the night before if possible, and heat in the morning, get your bag ready. By morning, you’ll have a lot less to do.
Get up the second your alarm goes off
We know. Not hitting the snooze button of your alarm is one of the hardest thing to do in the morning, but it’s possible. By getting up late you are setting a pattern of lateness for the rest of the day. And those extra minutes in bed will add up and push everything else back, so get up as quickly as you can.
If you think getting up immediately the alarm goes off is impossible, you could set it 10-15 minutes early. This way, you can snooze the alarm, get up at the specific time you had planned and get to your work or scheduled events on time.
Change the time on your watch
Set the time 5-10 minutes earlier than the actual time. With this even when you should leave the house 40 minutes before work time, you’ll be leaving 45-50 minutes earlier. That 5-10 extra minutes would come in handy when you happen to come across any delay on your way to work, and in many cases you’ll be getting to you place of work or event on time.
Keep your essentials near the door
During those last minutes that you’re about to step out, are you in the habit of spending extra time searching for your keys, wallet, charger, or mobile phone? If you tend to walk in the door and leave your keys on the counter, your wallet in the bedroom, and your phone on the kitchen table, you’ll spend too much extra time looking for everything when you could be on your way.
To put an end to this, keep all of your essential items in the same drawer or on the table near the door. They’ll be waiting there for you when it’s time to leave. You can make this a habit by emptying your bags of all essential items and putting them in the same place the moment you walk in the door.
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