5 time savers for a good morning

Would you like to be more productive early in the day? Do you need some morning motivation? Often, recommendations include setting the alarm hours earlier, going for a run, doing the crossword and meditating for 20 minutes - all before breakfast!

For us mere humans, these aren’t always realistic options. Here are some that may be more feasible.

Do you wake up groggy? Even if you get a good night's sleep, it’s hard to resist hitting the snooze button at least once. Called “sleep inertia,” research shows that morning fog is ironically even worse after a solid night of shut-eye than it is following 24 hours of sleep deprivation.

Take back your time! Stamp out your snoozing habit by getting at least eight hours of shut-eye and wake up naturally before your alarm. How? Start the night before: go to bed at the same time each evening, and set your thermostat to dip to around 67 degrees 30 minutes before bedtime, says Matthew Walker, PhD, director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Human Sleep Science and author of Why We Sleep. “Your body temperature needs to drop at night for sleep, and a lower room temperature helps signal your brain that it’s time.” Similarly, program the thermostat to rise again to your preferred daytime temperature 30 minutes before you want to get up to tell your body it’s wake-up time.

Women spend an average of 22.5 minutes getting ready in the morning, according to survey research—although this can rise a lot higher when the dreaded 'I've got nothing to wear' panic strikes!

Take back your time! Make those drawn-out moments a thing of the past by building a weekday “uniform.” Create a section front-and-center in your closet grouped by category (pants, tops, jackets), suggests organizing expert Rachel Rosenthal. All the pieces should work with one another, and should all look great on you. Then, every morning you can simply pick one item from column A, one from column B, one from column C—and you’re dressed.

That frantic last-minute search for car keys, gloves, ID, you name it, can steal away valuable moments just when you need them the most—on your way out the door.

Take back your time! Give frequently lost items a permanent home. “So much time is wasted in the morning hunting for things like sunglasses or children’s shoes. Designate a spot near the door where all such things go. Then never put them anywhere else,” says Laura Vanderkam, author of Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done.