The Agile Mum Lean Startup Approach to Getting Dressed: One Hour, Ten Outfits, Zero Morning Chaos

Part of me is an agile mum out of genuine conviction. Part of it is simply that I don’t have the time to micromanage my daughter 😉

I try to go through life in style. To do that efficiently, I’ve developed the habit of preparing complete outfits roughly ten days in advance — clothes, socks, underwear, accessories, all matched and ready for whatever’s coming up. By my estimate, it saves at least 30 minutes a week. Time I’d rather spend reading to my daughter than frantically hunting for matching tights at 7am.

I can’t take full credit for this. It developed through a kind of reverse engineering.

Ten years ago, I read Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg. Somewhere in the book, she mentioned a friend who put her kindergarten kids to bed already wearing the next day’s clothes — skipping pyjamas entirely. I tried it. It worked perfectly. My daughter was only wearing soft t-shirts and baggy pants anyway, and smelled like a peach regardless. Morning chaos: eliminated.

The lean approach for my personal “dress-to-impress” was just a logical next step.

What are your LEAN tips and strategies? What are your hacks to save time at mundane tasks to have more for meaningful activities?