How to Get Dressed in the Morning: 5 Time-Saving Tips

There’s nothing more unsettling than starting your day with a dose of complete and utter chaos, i.e., waking up late, ransacking your closet, re-ransacking your closet, and running out the door in an eleventh-hour outfit you’re uncomfortable wearing.

While we can’t help you kick that snooze-button addiction, we can offer a few helpful tips to effectively eliminate time from other parts of your morning routine, such as getting dressed.

For some of us, picking out the perfect outfit takes a little time, so employing a few key time-management and organizational methods can majorly pay off when it comes to saving precious morning minutes (so can checking out our Summer Outfits to Copy feature, which offers up  30 amazing end-of-summer outfits to co-opt!).  To make a few extra morning minutes a daily reality, keep reading for time-saving tips on how to get dressed faster!

1. Check the forecast — for the whole week

Yes, we all know that checking the weather the night before is standard practice, but it pays to check the forecast for the entire week every Sunday. That way — even if you don’t choose clothes for every day — you’ll have a general idea about what you’ll probably be reaching for. For example: If you know the week ahead is mostly going to be cool and drizzly, you’ll be able to visualize what you typically wear in the rain, and where the items are located in your closet.

2. Pick out your clothes — and shoes — the night before.

We realize that you’re not an 8-year-old girl, but laying out tomorrow’s outfit tonight, intuitively, is a huge time-saver. Be sure to iron, steam, lint-roll, or treat anything else you need to the night before as well, and hang your outfit on a hanger outside your closet, so all you have to do in the morning is reach for it. It helps to keep your shoes out too, since digging through your footwear collection in the morning could get distracting (the "this shoe or that shoe" game can be a massive time suck, right?).

3. Keep a clothing diary.

This may sound a little self-involved (or annoying), but we swear it works. Odds are, you wear outfits regularly that you like, but won’t remember them a few weeks later. No need to keep a separate notebook for this — simply jot down what you’re wearing each day in your work planner or calendar, and make a check mark next to outfits you’re really digging and might want to repeat again in their entirety. It’s extremely useful to flip back and see how you put items together, plus it serves as a nice little personal fashion recap.

4. Separate your accessories.

Is there anything more annoying than deciding you want to wear a certain necklace only to find it tangled up in a impenetrable mass with a heap of other chains? Apart from the fact that tangled jewelry is generally one of life’s irksome occurrences, it’s especially frustrating first thing on the morning. The solution? Keeping your accessories totally separate from one another.

We’re big fans of the minimalist nail-in-the-wall treatment for necklaces or flimsy bracelets: Hammer nails in a horizontal or vertical row somewhere that makes sense (e.g., over a big mirror, on the wall next to your closet, over a dresser) and hang up one piece of jewelry per nail. At the end of the day, always put it back where you found it.

5. Organize your closet

Having a game plan when it comes to your closet can effectively save precious time. You’d think that the more stuff you have, the easier it is to get dressed, but it’s actually the opposite that’s true: Lesser items means less things to weed through, which leads to fewer potential outfit combinations.

The first step to an easier-to-navigate closet: Assess your inventory and make smart cuts so you’re basically able to see everything you have. The all-time best way to do this is by asking yourself one question: "If I were shopping right this second, would I would I buy this item now?" If the answer is no, out it goes.

From there, divide your wardrobe by separates (shirts with shirts, skirts with skirts, etc.) and coordinate each each section going light to dark, left to right, since that’s how the eye naturally travels. Keep shoes lined up nearly on the floor of your closet, with the pairs you wear most often front and center.

As you’ll soon see, these small tasks will make a huge difference when it comes to creating a less chaotic morning!