Do you often have those mornings where you’re in a hectic mess saying to yourself, "I really need to get more organised," or find yourself at night staring at the contents of your bare fridge with a lingering feeling of exhaustion? 

You’re not alone. 

Many of us grapple with these everyday stressors and life feels a little overwhelming, but what if I told you there’s a way to alleviate this daily chaos? By automating small aspects of your routine, you can create a calmer, more organised life and achieve that elusive feeling of organisational success.

When I talk about automation, I’m not referring to AI, robots or large-scale industrial processes. Instead, the focus is on practical strategies to simplify your daily tasks, allowing you to run on autopilot and eliminate unnecessary stress. 

In this episode, I go through some of my favourite systems and routines that have saved me thousands of hours of unnecessary overwhelm.

Being organised surprisingly offers great flexibility. You can eliminate unnecessary stressors and open yourself to more options, chances, and fun. Living life on your terms becomes possible when you remove dependencies and time-wasters from your routine.

Remember, "nothing changes if nothing changes." Wishing for a calmer day won’t make it happen, but you have the power to create it for yourself. And that truly is a gift worth giving yourself. 

Connect with Me: 

Website: www.balanceathand.com 

Instagram:  @balance_at_hand

Do you often have one of those mornings

where you say to yourself, I need to

get more organized or find yourself at

night, staring at the contents of your

fridge with a feeling of exhaustion.

There are some of these everyday

tasks that we can start to automate.

And in doing so, this can be

the key to you achieving that

feeling of organizational success.

Now, automation doesn't relate to robots

or doing things on an industrial scale.

Automation in this sense.

Takes the everyday tasks and sorts

them out so that you can run on

automatic, removing unnecessary stress.

For example, picking out what you

are wearing for the week in advance

means each morning you automatically

know what you're going to wear.

For many people, that's an everyday

stressor that could be removed

by simply deciding in advance.

So let's start automating your world.

First, what are your stress points?

I commonly hear of two areas.

One being mornings and the chaos

of getting organized for the day.

And the other is dinners.

Today, we'll go into these subjects

in more detail, but if your area of

daily stress is different, please

use the concepts discussed and

identify opportunities to apply

these methods to your situation.

Mornings can be hectic, whether

you are living on your own,

sharing a house or have a family.

I have lived in all of these

situations over the years, and I

used to stress myself out with trying

to do too much in should not feel

like you've run a marathon by 9am.

We always hear people saying, if you need

more time in the morning, get up earlier.

Unfortunately, unless you can shift your

overall daily commitments to create a

later start to the day for yourself, all

of those people are absolutely right.

The benefits of getting up earlier to

have a calm morning, a morning that you

have created for yourself are enormous.

The removal of stress can have an

amazingly fast positive impact on

your physical and mental health.

You will find yourself more alert and

more productive throughout the day.

When you start the day on your terms.

So first up, what would you

like your mornings to look like?

Make sure you incorporate

time for yourself.

This includes exercise.

If you prefer to do that in the mornings,

as well as personal growth activities.

These can be meditating,

reading, journaling, learning.

This can also be a time to put 30 minutes

to working towards achieving a life goal.

Identify the areas where

you start to feel rushed.

Are you rushed because you need more

time for the task or because you are

organizing other people or because

you've left it until the last minute?

Do you find that you commonly forget

about things you need to get done?

All of these are areas for you to look

and review and reflect for yourself.

Let's look at some of the common stress

points experienced in the morning

and discuss options for removing

them or lessening their impact.

Getting ready.

You know how long you need

for your personal admin to get

yourself ready for the day.

Where can you remove

decisions from your morning?

For example, by deciding what you're

going to wear the evening before.

Look at the weather, look at

the activities of the next day.

Pick out clothes and place them

wherever appropriate for you.

If you need changes of clothes

or gym gear, have this packed and

ready always the evening before.

If you have a family, this

rule should apply to them also.

Get everyone in the habit of getting

ready for the next day the night before.

If you are super ambitious,

you can always try organizing

yourself for the week ahead.

See what works for you.

I tend to just do it the night before.

Preparing lunch.

Whether for yourself or

others, this activity seems

to derail a lot of households.

I try my best to keep

lunches really simple.

Whether I'm in the office or working

from home, leftovers are a winner.

I make bigger dinners so that

lunch is ready for the next day.

When you are planning your dinners

for the coming week, just factor

in lunches and make sure you've got

that extra amount of ingredients.

If you need to make a lunch,

Always do this the evening before.

Even making the decision that you

will buy lunch the next day, the

night before, will remove stress

and save decisions the next morning.

If you need to organize

school lunches, bulk is best.

I do the prep work on the weekend, and

during the week, it's the responsibility

of the children to then pack the food

into their lunch boxes, add a cold

pack, and then add it to their bag.

For my house, I make fresh

sandwiches or rolls and then put

them into freezer proof reusable

containers and into the freezer.

And I normally do this

on a Saturday or Sunday.

I place cut up fruit and vegetables into

containers, into the fridge, as well

as whole fruit and veg in the pantry.

I have another box with

items such as muesli bars.

In the morning, the kids know to

pick out a sandwich, which will thaw

in their lunchbox before lunchtime,

and then also get themselves two

items of fruit or vegetables and

two items from the pantry box.

If you include yogurt or dairy in

their lunches, please make sure

to add a little ice pack to keep

these items at a safe temperature.

Children can also fill up

their own water bottles.

Packing their own lunchbox in the

morning takes the children under a

minute and gives them a sense of control

over their preparedness for the day.

Older children can start to help prepare

the lunches on the weekend as well.

First with you and then independently.

Leaving on time.

This is a biggie.

And I commonly hear that households

disintegrate into a rush of quick,

quick, quick with people yelling,

get dressed, get your shoes while

they're still packing lunches.

To remove this, set yourself a leaving

time And if you need to set yourself

a 10 minute warning alarm, do so.

make sure the time you set allows

you to get to wherever you need to

go with ample time and time to spare.

if you have a family that needs to

get out the door with you, make sure

that everybody knows that this is

the time you will all be leaving.

As age appropriate, make children

responsible for getting up at a certain

time and getting themselves ready.

And alarm can support them with this

again, as age appropriate, automate

the whole leaving process and shift

responsibility from you getting others

ready to them getting themselves ready.

You focus on your day, which is even

better because you have automated

some of your own preparations now too.

If you get to leaving time and

some of your morning chores

haven't been done, leave them.

The world won't fall apart.

However, do spend some time working out

how you could possibly automate these, or

even better how you could delegate these.

When is a better, less pressure time

to get them done for your household?

Now, if you share a house with others,

including sharing a bathroom, then a

morning schedule to make sure you are

not late because you're waiting for a

shower to be free may be very important.

It probably doesn't need to be as

detailed as Sheldon creates, if you know,

you know, but a conversation about the

coming week with your housemate will

remove surprise as unnecessary stress.

Next, the second big topic

of discussion is dinners.

There is a few ways to tackle this.

You could write out your list

for a week against each day.

Or because I change my mind a lot based

on how I feel, I prefer just to have a

list of meals to choose from and know

that every Thursday is a takeaway meal.

Again, bulk preparations on the

weekend create an easier week for me.

But if Monday and Tuesday are

your better days, put it in your

plan to do it sometime then.

I work out roughly what's

needed and I do a grocery order

online and have it delivered.

It saves me heaps of time and removes my

terrible habit of over shopping, which

I absolutely do if I go in store, also

factor in local markets and sourcing

produce from there, if you're able.

I love our monthly market.

now, if you are ready to get Uber

organized, you can place clear tubs

into your fridge and label them with

either the day of the week or the meal.

And after your groceries has arrived, you

can place items into each tub, on the day

you're going to cook it or for the meal

it is so that everything for your meal

is together and ready for you to prepare.

If you get to dinner time and the

thought of preparing the ingredients

and cooking makes you reach away for the

takeaway menus more than you would like.

Have a look at how you can

apply the automation rule.

Can you bulk cut up the vegetables

or proteins and have them

ready in containers to cook?

Or should you bulk cook meals

and have them ready for yourself

to heat up during midweek?

I do both because by midweek my diary is

full and I find that by the time dinner

time comes around I am running on empty.

So automation is the key to

my dinner success midweek.

There are so many examples of activities

in your life you can automate.

Today we have just touched on a few,

but the key takeaways from today are

really to work out your stress points

and see what you can do to remove them.

Continually reassess, was

that the day of my dreams?

I felt organized and carefree, or

are there improvements to make?

A bit of extra organization on the

days of the week where you have more

time pays dividends to your physical

and mental health during the week.

Some final considerations.

Delegate as much as you are able.

Children should be involved with getting

themselves ready from a young age.

While it's amazing to nurture them

and look after them, you are doing

them a disservice by not teaching them

and supporting them to safely learn

how to contribute to the household.

Children should be dressing themselves

as soon as they express a desire

to, and this can be quite young.

As long as we are there to help them

with the tricky bits, it's more than

fine to allow kids to dress themselves.

And by school age, this

should be expected.

And kids are super capable.

Have them making their beds and

keeping their space in For younger

kids, get them to help with tasks such

as folding towels and then increase

responsibilities as age appropriate.

Being really organized allows

you to then be really flexible.

And it's funny because people

don't commonly associate the two.

I hear from a lot of people

that don't want to get organized

because they don't want to be

that rigid, but it's the opposite.

Removing your stress points

through simple organization

suddenly opens you up to more, more

options, more chances, more fun.

You find that you remove

the unnecessaries.

The time wasters, the

dependencies, and you start to

live your life on your terms.

And that's the best way to really

start to experience the world.

Remember that nothing changes.

If nothing changes, wishing for a

calmer day, won't work, but you have

the power to create it for yourself.

And that truly is a gift.

I hope you give yourself.

I can't wait to hear how you are removing

stresses from your every day until next

time, live your best balanced life.