A calm morning often begins the evening before. When you leave the house in a hurry, searching for keys, charger and papers, the day starts with stress you could easily have avoided. Packing your work bag the night before takes only a short time, and it removes a whole series of small decisions from the morning, when your mind is not yet ready for them and every little delay feels larger than it is.
What to do the evening before
Start by looking at tomorrow's diary. What meetings or tasks do you have, and what do you need for them? Papers, a notebook, a charger, a laptop, a lunch: write the list once, then keep it somewhere handy. After a few days, you will know it by heart, and packing will take almost no thinking. If something changes, you simply add it to the list and it will not be forgotten again.
Pack the bag and put it by the door. Include the essentials that you use every day, and check that everything works. Is the charger in the bag? Is the laptop charged? Does the pen actually write? It is much easier to fix these things in the evening than when you are standing in the hall in your coat, already late and looking for the one thing that is missing.
Prepare the rest of the morning too. Lay out your clothes, think about what you will have for breakfast, and check the route to work or the time of the train. If you drive, check whether you need fuel. If you have a meeting that starts early, plan for a bit of extra time. A few minutes in the evening can save far more in the morning, and you leave the house feeling in control of the day.
Keep the habit going by making it part of your evening. Do it at a fixed point, for example after supper. Empty the bag when you get home, so that old papers do not build up, and refill it fresh. Over time, you will find that mornings are quieter and that you arrive at work in a calmer state, ready for whatever the day brings, instead of already behind before you have even started.
