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Your husband’s rushing around trying to find his keys, do up his tie and grab his phone all at the same time. You’re half-dressed, trying to cook breakfast with one eye frantically on the clock all the while asking your eldest child for the third time if he’s packed his P.E kit before the youngest decides that now’s an excellent opportunity to tip cereal over herself.

Get Yourselves Organized
Instead of running around like headless chickens each morning have everything packed, and ready by the door the night before. Kids lunches should be pre-made and in the fridge waiting, ironed school uniforms hung on the back of doors and all, completed homework, returned to book bags. Being properly organized will help everyone get their day off to a good start at the same time as lessening the chances of things being forgotten.
Be Realistic About Tasks
Most of us don’t know how long it takes to complete a task so it’s worth you timing yourself when it comes to simple everyday activities. Set a stopwatch going when showering, eating, during the school run or even just doing the laundry. Time’s a strange creature, one minute it’ll seem like you’ve got all the time in the world then boom! Before you know it, half an hour’s gone by and you have no idea how it even happened. Once you realize how long it honestly takes to accomplish something you’re much more likely to be prompt.
Set Your Watch Fast
It might mean you getting up fifteen minutes earlier or being confused about what the ‘real-time’ is but it’s also an excellent way to give yourself a much-needed window of breathing space. Make sure everyone, even the kids, are wearing watches at all times and that they are all in synchronised. If necessary, check out Apple watches for kids for Christmas to make sure next year gets off to a punctual start. This goes doubly if they have a busy schedule and need to be in multiple locations throughout the day. Find yourself hitting the snooze button, or worse, sleeping through your alarm? Get yourself a louder one or an alarm you have to get out of bed to turn off. An Amazon Alexa is always a good alternative to a traditional alarm clock.
Don’t Stay Up Too Late
Getting everyone to bed sooner will increase their chances of waking up on time. Young children need plenty of sleep, at least eleven hours, while older kids should aim to get around nine, to ten hours rest per night. Don’t forget yourselves either as adults need around eight hours sleep to feel awake, active and alert. Oversleeping, even in a comfy bed is a horrible way to start the day as you’ll constantly be playing catch up, as well as being tired, irritable and probably hungry because you won’t have had time to enjoy a leisurely sit-down breakfast.
Consider The Consequences
Not only is being late incredibly rude but you could lose out on a job opportunity, have your friends arrange to do things without you, or become embarrassed when you walk into big events like weddings or christenings late when everyone else has managed to get there on time. Perpetual lateness is noticed by others and while people will make light of it eventually waiting around for you to get there, especially when collecting children, will wear pretty thin.
We often struggle – thanks for the tips
We are not too bad, not often late, putting the clocks forward a bit is a good idea, especially for my husband
I sometimes make myself late by thinking … I’ll just do this or I’ll just do that before I leave. If I’m travelling by car, I find setting a time to leave reminder (on Waze) really helps refocus me.