Okay ladies, today we’re gonna figure out how to leave the house like a champ in the morning.
This is something that I have tried to do (largely unsuccessfully) for the majority of my adult years. How am I perennially late for everything?
Blame it on the wardrobe.
I will be late to pick up a 2 million dollar Lotto prize if I don’t like my outfit. This very morning I left the house 15 minutes late because I was tearing through final outfit choices, convinced that the wrong tights would ruin my day.
They probably would have.
Fortunately, I’ll never know. Although I was late, my slate gray opaque tights looked fantastic with my black heeled ankle booties and fuchsia crochet A-line dress. Full disclosure: I had to go back into the house twice after locking the door. Once, because I had a vision of a bracelet that would look better with the ensemble and then again, for round two, when I realized that I had forgotten my makeup bag (helpful when you’ll be gone for 12 hours).
Clearly I have a problem.
So, if you’re anything like me-mostly functional as an adult with this one (only the one!) major handicap, here is my solution:
Plan your outfit the night before. And I don’t mean ‘vision board in your head’ plan your outfit. That’s what landed me 20 minutes late this morning. Going to bed I was picturing my black cap sleeve dress, brown belt, aforementioned slate tights, and nude suede oxford wedges. In theory this was completely glorious. In execution the wedges and belt were all wrong together and the tights with the shoes made me look like I had concrete potato feet. It was Not Good.
Instead of leaving the house 20 minutes early, as planned, I was throwing polka dot dresses on and green suede boots off and generally creating clothing chaos around my room. Nothing breeds orderly house leaving like a bit of mayhem.
The hard truth of the matter is, if you have this peculiar quirk, this eccentricity, that won’t permit you to enjoy your day if you hate your ensemble, you’re gonna be screwed unless you try it all on, down to the jewelry and know it’s a success. But you have to do it the night before. That way, when you have foggy morning brain, you don’t even have to think. You just pull on your outfit, down to the hammered brass hoops, and you know it looks good.
You can go old-fashioned with it, and just try on your outfits each time, or you can use one of the many outfit planning apps that are out there. Check out Mashable’s top 5 fashion planning apps. They are pretty damn amazing, you can catalog your entire closet, digitally drag accessories and separates around to create looks, and catalog photos of outfits that look amazing but you might forget to wear. I have endless post-it notes of cute outfits in such a disorderly (see chaos reference above) disarray, I need an intern to organize me. I think technology might be the short-term answer!
Either way, I know I learned my lesson again, for the 500th time since I entered adulthood and started caring about arriving on time. Try the plan-ahead or check out the apps and let me know how it goes!
Image Courtesy Google/Photo Credit: Stylebook
