Five Things Before Bed to Make Mornings Better!

I have always been a bit of a neat freak, and even though my pantry may suggest otherwise, order makes me happy. I feel less frantic or anxious when I wake up to a clean kitchen. Throughout my years with young children in the home I was pretty manic about keeping things orderly. Today my kitchen is mostly clean without the craziness of feeding a family, it can stay that way other than on our cooking or shooting days when to be honest it gets outta control completely!

But these are the tasks I do almost every night before going to bed to make sure I wake up to some sort of order! It lessens the shock of mornings to know at least one thing is all good!

DISHES: I am lucky enough to have a dishwasher. I have had one for literally most of my life now and I highly recommend you invest in one if you don't have one already. Life changes when you have a dishwasher. You can keep the kitchen bench clean all day long by collecting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher throughout the day.

Unwieldy items that will not fit, just wash by hand and then leave on the Madesmart Drying Mat until bedtime, when you can put them away. Start the dishwasher. If you are still up when the dishwasher finishes, unload. There is an extra spike of serotonin when you wake up to a clean, empty dishwasher. (Sad but true!)

TICK, task one!

CLEAN FLOOR: Whether this be sweeping, vaccing, mopping, I at least like to not stick to the floor or have UFO's (unidentified food objects) sticking to the soles of my feet when walking through the kitchen. So usually this is just a sweep with my Enjo mop, occasionally the vacuum needs to get involved and even more occasionally the steam mop makes an appearance. Gleaming floors for morning. Aaahhh, I'm sleeping better already!

CLEAN SINK and PUT OUT FRESH TEA and DISH TOWELS: Don't you love a shiny stainless sink? Or any other surface that sinks are made from these days! I have an aversion to gunk in the drain, so I do use stainless steel drain plugs to catch all that (icky) stuff. A good polish after washing the sink with a paper towel and some Thermo Quickleen are all that is needed to have a shiny, almost mirror like result in your sink.

PLUS ~ wake up to fresh tea towels and dish cloths. Easy. Throw the dirty ones in the laundry, clean ones out and job done!

EMPTY THE RUBBISH/RECYCLING/COMPOST; Do it. There is nothing less fun than waking up to some funky growth or worst, living creatures in your rubbish or on your compost that you were planning to get rid of in the morning. It literally takes less than a minute unless you live on acreage to get your 'trash' into the bin or compost outside to wherever you keep that.

It is therapeutic to get rid of stuff, so while you're throwing out rubbish, make sure you check the pantry/fridge/freezer in case there is something lurking in there that serves you no longer. Get it out! There, don't you feel great?

LAST BUT BEST: What's for breakfast? Think about this the night before for a seamless slide into morning. Maybe get the Brew Choc out and measured ready for brewing. Prime the coffee machine, (does that need a clean?) prep your smoothie fruit and have it in the fridge ready to go! Maybe you're the porridge queen, get all the ingredients ready or do a search for a new version, I have no less than 10 different recipes for that fantastic start to your day!

SO if you have more to add to this list, please email us at hello@tenina.com We would love to know how you add a little more fun to your mornings. In the meantime, we hope you have found something to make life easier right here in this article. Please share if you're feeling us!