I am not a morning person. Never have been. Never will be. But I have discovered some life-changing morning hacks to make my transition into daylight easier.

Learn how to get more sleep, cut down the time it takes to get ready in the morning, and start the day feeling happy and well-rested. Upgrade your morning routine.

Start the night before

Everyone wants more sleep but how do we get it? Logically, we should go to bed early. But I don’t like to go to bed early. I’m a night person. The key is to not do it all at once. Try going to bed 15 minutes earlier than usual, then the following week add another 15. Gradually build up to an hour and it won’t seem like such a big change. You end up with an extra hour of sleep.

Meal prep

Save time by making your lunch the night before. This seems like a no-brainer, right? You can also prep your breakfast the night before. Get the oatmeal ready or set up the smoothie ingredients the night before. Just leave out the liquid ingredients until morning. It saves time, and it’s one less thing to do in the morning.

Set it up

There are other things you can do the night before too. Set the table with your plates, cutlery, coffee cup, napkin. Set up your coffee maker the night before. Some coffee machines have timers that will have the coffee ready when you are. If you don’t have a timer, have everything ready the night before so you can just press the start button.

Ignore the phone

Do not pick up your phone and surf while you’re lying in bed. Suddenly you’ve lost a half hour — or maybe even an hour — and you haven’t even gotten out of bed yet. Social media can wait. Work can wait. Try not to check your email until you get out of the house.

I know this one is tough, especially if you’re like me and use your phone as an alarm clock. If you really have to check your email to make sure there an no emergencies, make sure you are standing up and out of bed. If there are no emergencies, put the phone away and don’t respond to anything until you’ve left the house.

Upgrade your tools

Look around at your appliances in every category. Get that coffee maker that has a timer function. Get a new hairdryer, a cutting edge dryer that dries your hair faster. I have a curling iron that heats up in 3.5 seconds. I don’t have to worry if I forget to plug it in. It’s ready before I even brush the tangles out of my hair. Modernize to time-saving tools.

Functional design

Have your routine stuff easily accessible. Put all of your everyday makeup into one caddy: your moisturizer, your SPF, your favorite brushes, your daytime makeup look. Have everything you need at hand. It saves time hunting through your makeup bag.

Style Prep

Plan your outfit the night before, and I mean everything. Choose your clothes, underwear, accessories, shoes. Have them waiting for you. If you can’t decide or you want to dress according to the weather, plan two outfits the night before. That way you can use the second one another day.

Make your morning routine easier by trying some or all of these life-changing morning hacks. Let me know if you have any tips to make mornings easier? Share your ideas in the comments section below.