Making Yourself a Productive Morning Person in 5 Easy Steps + FreePrintable!

Happy Monday friends!!

 Coming to you from my couch, snuggling with my golden pup and watching the Olympics in between (Go USA!!!). Call me crazy, but I actually love Mondays. It signals the start of a new week and a fresh start. I love starting my week off on the right foot and planning out a productive week. However, Monday mornings are the worst. After a weekend of sleeping in and relaxing with my hubby, Monday mornings just seem to hit like a freight train. I am not naturally a morning person; I prefer to be most productive at 11:00pm. Despite this, I have worked out a system that allows me to be a better morning person and to enjoy getting up before 9:00am as much as I can.

Puppy snuggles make any morning better

SO how do I do it without being a total grump? Here is my 5 steps to making yourself a productive morning person!

1. Don't Press Snooze
I tend to be the queen of setting 500 alarms to ensure I get up in the morning. However, that also makes it really easy to turn one off and convince myself that the 10 extra minutes of sleep before the next one goes off will truly make the day great. I have started to force myself out of bed at the first alarm. Granted, my 3-month-old puppy has helped this habit because she is wide awake the minute any alarm goes off and does a pretty darn good job of getting me out of bed.

2. Make the Bed
Once you force your half-dead body from the warm sheets, make your bed. This not only starts the day out with a clean and productive beginning but it also discourages you from climbing back in and waiting on another alarm to go off. I try to get my bed made asap so that I cannot go back to sleep.

3. Establish a Breakfast Routine
Breakfast is something I always look forward to. It is my favorite meal of the day. Therefore, if I keep good breakfast food in the house, I am more tempted to get downstairs and make myself waffles instead of getting back in bed. My routine has come to include a hearty breakfast and the first cup of strong coffee while I watch one 30 minute episode of something on Netflix while still in my PJ's. I give myself this 30 minutes of vegging out, relaxing and fueling myself for the day. Some people prefer to hit the ground running in the morning; I need a little time to get alive before I can start to conquer the day. As long as you find something that works for you, a good breakfast routine will help your mornings immensely.

4. Dress to Impress
Even if you are planning on staying in all day and studying or doing dirty yard work, get yourself dressed right from the get go. If I let myself stay in my PJ's past breakfast, it sets a lazy tone for my whole morning and therefore my whole day. I try to get dressed and ready immediately after breakfast. Once I have a fresh outfit on, my hair wrangled into a semblance of acceptability and at least some BB cream and mascara on, I feel ready to conquer the day and get to work. It signals the beginning of my "work" day to be dressed and ready for whatever that day might bring. This could be anywhere from a business suit for Law School to old painting clothes to repaint my deck. No matter what I am wearing, getting dressed to conquer that day is the signal I need to know it is time to get the day rolling!

5. Plan My Day
I love to write down everything. To-do lists, calendars, planners, meal planning; you name it and I probably have it written out somewhere around my house. Starting my morning off is no different. In order to start a productive and organized day, I have discovered that having a "daily planner" sheet is the best way to do this. I prefer to sit down at the table with cup of coffee #2 and this cute little daily planner and take 10 minutes to map out my day. I put down what I have to get done, what I want to get done, what my big goal of the day is and any other random thoughts that get running through my mind. Getting everything out on paper helps to clear my mind and create some order for the day and prioritizes what I have to do. Originally, I just jotted this all down on a small legal pad but eventually I made this cute little sheet to add some pretty functionality to my morning.

***My Daily Planner sheet available as a free downloadable PDF printable for all of my lovely readers! I hope it helps to get your day started on the right foot just like it does for mine!

+ My free bonus tip is specifically for Mondays: I love to fill out a weekly planner on Monday mornings laying out my goals for the week, meals, blogging, to-do list and shopping list. I find it so helpful to have a plan for the week before it gets started; it keeps me on track.

So there you go! This is the short and sweet way I went from being the worst morning person ever to actually getting out of bed and enjoying the way my mornings progress. My schedule is currently set for summer break so it looks something like this:

     6:45am- Alarm goes off

     6:45-7am- Take puppies outside and feed them breakfast while I make the bed

     7:00-7:30am- Breakfast, coffee and an episode of How I Met Your Mother 

     7:30-8am- Get dressed, do hair and makeup

     8:00-8:15am- Second cup of coffee and mapping my day through my handy Daily Planner

     8:15am- Hit the ground running and get my day started!

We are not all born morning people but hopefully this will help you learn to take advantage of mornings just as I have. Getting the day started early and started right is truly the best way to have a nice and productive day!

Wishing productive mondays to all!

DIY Wooden Crate Coffee Table

9/28/17 Update: We still have this table in our living room and it has held up beautifully!!

Who loves a good Pinterest DIY???? I know I do! Ever since we bought our new home, I have been dying to do some DIY's. My husband and I were in dire need of a coffee table for our little living room and most of the ones we liked were out of our budget. I don't start Law School for a few more weeks so I have some spare time for projects. So of course, I got on Pinterest and did some digging and discovered this great DIY project for a coffee table made of simple wooden crates. I looked at a few variations and decided on my own unique plan of attack. SO, without further ado, here is my tutorial for a DIY wooden crate coffee table.

Supplies

4 Large Wooden Crates

A Jar of Wood Stain 

Paint Brush for Staining

Old Rag for Staining

Sand paper or Electric Sander

6 Medium length screws

Drill 

Step 1- Find Wooden Crates
I wanted to find a good deal on the crates to keep our budget low. I had been looking for a few weeks and this Sunday paper showed the crates I wanted on sale at Menards for $8.99 with a $3 mail in rebate making them an all-time low price of $5.99. I went right out and bought 4 of the crates along with a small jar of stain ($7.59).

Step 2- Sand the Crates

My next step was to sand the crates because they were slightly coarse and I didn't want any chances of splinters. An electric sander we already own made the job quick and easy. 

Step 3- Stain the Crates

Staining came next. I did two coats of our chosen stain in Golden Mahogany. The first coat was brushed on and let dry overnight. The second coat was again brushed on and then I rubbed the excess off with an old rag for a nice rustic look. I let them dry after that for 4 hours. 

The Crates after sanding and 2 coats of stain 

Step 4- Arrange and Screw Crates Together

Once the crates were sufficiently dry, I arranged them into the size and shape I wanted. I made sure to put the best sides facing outward and got them nice and straight. After this, I put 2 screws in each junction. Be careful to screw into the strong wooden ends (with the carry holes) versus the rather flimsy slates. I put in a medium sized screw that went through both crates without poking out the other side. 

  

                                          Arranged how I want them.                                      Two screws into the strong ends

Step 5- Place and Decorate

Now, I just placed my new coffee table in our living room and added some decorations. I chose to leave the center hole as is and put a tray over it. I think long-term we want to order a piece of custom cut glass to cover the whole top for durability but we haven't done this yet. 

  

 

Overall, I could not be more pleased with the project and the outcome! It completes our living room perfectly and was so simple. The color matches our other furniture, it has lovely storage and is just the right size for our small space. Eating in the living room is much easier now! 

The project in total took me about 3 hours. Sanding and staining took 2 hours and the shopping was about 30 minutes and putting it together took about 30 minutes. My total investment was $31.55- not bad for a coffee table and well within our budget! I highly suggest this project and I hope this tutorial helps you out! 

My Must-Have School Supplies for Law School

Ahhhh early August; When school supplies invades every retail establishment and middle school supply lists can be found in the front of every Walmart. Call me a nerd but I love this time of year. I love preparing and shopping for the upcoming school year and starting out feeling prepared. School supplies are one of my favorite things to shop for and I can spend an eternity (in the words of my husband) trying to pick out the perfect pens. As Law School grows ever nearer, I have been taking stock of what I have and what I still need in terms of school supplies. As of this week, I feel that I have everything I need and started organizing it, labeling, color coding.... you know typical crazy OCD stuff.

Choosing the Perfect Planner for Law School

20 days until Law School classes start! I am in full OCD organizational mode. First order of business- finding the perfect planner for keeping my sanity throughout Law School. I have always been a Planner user. I find that writing out my life and responsibilities really helps me stay organized and get it all done. That being said, my quest for the perfect planner to suit my needs has always come up a little lacking. My requirements are a bit steep: pretty, not super bulky, student friendly, simple layout, customized specifically for my needs and not ridiculously priced.

I did a lot of research into high-end planners in my quest for the perfect one. My senior year of undergrad I splurged on the famous Lilly Pulitzer Planner. Though beautiful, it just did not suit my needs and I ended up ditching it for a little leather planner I found at T.J. Maxx for $5. That planner also was not perfect by any means but it got me through graduation. In preparation for law school, I started researching again. I gave Bullet journaling a try as it is the craze of Tumblr but I just really couldn't make it work for me. It was just too much work and I gave up before it really helped me. This time around I came across the Erin Condren Life Planner which seemed to be great for juggling many things but the sticker price was a bit steep.

Enter, the Plum Perfect Planner. Priced lower than the EC planner, prettier, more customizable and a better student layout. I read a few reviews by other Law Students regarding the planner and looked around their website at all the options and I was sold within minutes. Usually, I wait around to make a decision to see if I change my mind. In this case, I picked a cover, layout and a few add-ons and ordered it faster than you can say "Plum Paper".

So why did I choose this planner? Five big reasons.

1. Personalized
Call me basic but I love having personalized/monogrammed things. Having something that is pretty and special for some reason makes me more apt to use the item and since I HAVE to use a planner to stay organized, I wanted to to be pretty and inviting. I absolutely love that Plum Paper offers so many pretty designs and customization options. I chose to have my name and a monogram on the cover. The design I chose is clean and bright and just seems so inviting. It is pretty and I love whipping it out at every opportunity because it makes me smile.

2. Student Friendly
Plum Paper offers a specific student planner but I did not choose that because it was expensive to add in all my classes and it didn't really allow for real life to be integrated into the planner like I wanted. I chose the regular planner in a vertical morning-afternoon-evening layout. This helps me to lump my day into time frames for studying, classes, free time, etc. I have plenty of space for class assignments, meetings and study schedules as well as appointments, bills to be paid and any other events within my life. I love the monthly layout for looking at the big picture of what my month will entail and the goal setter/to-do page at the beginning of each month. I ordered the 7x9 size and it is just right- big enough to write everything down but small enough that it doesn't take up too much space in my purse of backpack.

3. Add-On's
The add-on's really made this planner a winner to me. I chose to add on the Monthly To-Do lists and a blog planning section. I think these will really help me to stay more organized and it keeps everything in one spot: school, blog, life, to-do's. Being able to add these extras really made Plum Paper the planner for me. In future planners, I might even add in other extras like a fitness planner, bill tracker and who knows what else. The options are nearly endless for total life organization (wow that really shows my OCD loud and clear).

4. Durability
I use and abuse my planners so I had to make sure this would hold up. I read a lot of reviews and never saw any major concerns with durability. After receiving my planner, it lives up to my standard thanks to the plastic protector on the front and the nice firm spirals holding it all together. We will reconvene on this aspect when I am done with it but I am confident that Plum Paper will live through my school year.

5. Price
For the level of customization, add-ons and quality provided in Plum Paper, you seriously cannot beat the price point. The base price is $31 and with my add-on's of blog planning and to-do pages my total plus shipping was $46.25. I know I said that $50 for the EC planner was too much and then I went and spent nearly the same on the Plum Paper but the difference is I got exactly what I wanted and needed. The EC planner felt like I was paying for a name and was getting something I would have to conform my needs to fit. With Plum Paper, it is customized to my specific needs from the start. That is, in my opinion, worth every penny.

As you can see, my choice in a planner was a bit of a process. I did a lot of thinking and research and thankfully ended up with what I believe is the perfect planner for my Law School journey. Too any other 1L students looking for a good planner, I highly suggest the Plum Paper Planner. Allow for at least 3 weeks for your planner to arrive. It took my planner a solid 2 weeks to arrive and you would not want to cut it close on not having it in time for school.

Overall, I am pleased as punch with my planner! Thank you Plum Paper for this wonderful product. Also, thanks for the sweet handwritten note- now thats customer service!! Now, I shall return to my planning and color coding. Oh how I love a perfectly color coded planner page :)

What planners do you use for Law School???

Life Update

I'm back! After a whirlwind few weeks, I am ready to jump back into blogging. I got married on July 16th and it was a dream come true. We then went on our honeymoon to Disney World and Universal Studios. We had a blast!

Now it is back to the law school prep grind and getting our little blue house put together. Here are the 5 things I am working on this week:

1. Thank You Notes
Weddings are great and our guests were SO generous. Now I need to take a chunk of time and write a thank you note to everyone. It will be time-consuming but worth it to give thanks to each and every person who helped us celebrate.

2. Settling in Our Home
My husband has been living in our house since we bought it in May but I have only now moved in full time following our marriage. There is a lot of things to do and organize and decorate. It is starting to feel more homey but it is still a work in progress. Some fun DIY projects are in the works :)

3. Orientation Reading
Law School orientation is coming up quick and I have some cases to read to prepare for the mock classes. It will be a good time to get to work on my reading skills and perfect my highlighter process of note taking.

4. Blogging
Time to get back to blogging for real. I have a ton of blogging ideas not I just need to sit down at my desk and get to typing!

5. Relaxing
I only have a few more weeks before school starts and I do want some time to relax. This weekend my husband and I are going to a baseball game with an old high school friend and we hope to check out the local zoo next week and find a good dog park. There must be some time for fun and relaxation amidst all the preparation and work.

So that is what I am up to! Hope everyone else is enjoying these last weeks of summer!