Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 2: This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 2: tip is that to get out the door painlessly and quickly,
Speaker 2: you need a launch pad. Whether you are in a
Speaker 2: household of seven people like me, or you live alone,
Speaker 2: or anywhere in between, you need some place where you
Speaker 2: corral everything you need for leaving the house. This is
Speaker 2: true even if you don't have a mudroom or obvious
Speaker 2: place to put this stuff. You can solve that problem
Speaker 2: and life will be easier if you do. I hear
Speaker 2: from so many people that getting out the door is
Speaker 2: a chronic challenge. You're close to exiting when you realize
Speaker 2: that something necessary is still far away, or you can't
Speaker 2: find your keys or someone's backpack or shoes. This is
Speaker 2: incredibly frustrating. The solution is to have a.
Speaker 1: Launch pad, a place in your house where there is
Speaker 1: an architectural queue to leave and store all the things
Speaker 1: you need to leave the house. This could be your sunglasses,
Speaker 1: a purse, a work bag, coat and gloves, umbrellas, and shoes.
Speaker 1: If you've got kids, it might be the place where
Speaker 1: you put the diaper bag, backpads, sports equipment, sunscreen, et cetera.
Speaker 1: When the launch pad has everything you need to get
Speaker 1: out the door, there is no ending up late because
Speaker 1: you are searching for mittens or soccer cleats or keys.
Speaker 1: You know exactly where they all are. Because everything is
Speaker 1: in the launch pad area. You can also give yourself
Speaker 1: an easy visual queue to remember one off items. If
Speaker 1: you need to mail a letter, you can put it
Speaker 1: by your shoes in the launch pad area and you
Speaker 1: will see it. Since most people exit and enter through
Speaker 1: the same door most days, the existence of a launch
Speaker 1: pad means that when you return home, it is obvious
Speaker 1: where stuff goes. Ideally, there is no trail of items
Speaker 1: leading to people's rooms. Everything gets dumped in the launch pad,
Speaker 1: so it is there when you need it now. If
Speaker 1: you have a reasonably sized family, this could be a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, but that is okay. A mudroom or
Speaker 1: a laundry room by a frequently used interest is the
Speaker 1: obvious place for all this. You can put bins and
Speaker 1: hooks and shelves to get some of the stuff off
Speaker 1: the floor. But if you don't have an obvious room
Speaker 1: that provides a queue, you need to make one. Identify
Speaker 1: where you usually come in and out of your house.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is a foyer. Maybe it's a door directly
Speaker 1: into the living room. Maybe it's the kitchen. But either way,
Speaker 1: put something there to store the obvious things that go
Speaker 1: in and out with you. Maybe it's a bin for shoes,
Speaker 1: a coat wreck for coats, and a table where you
Speaker 1: can put a basket for keys, a basket for umbrellas,
Speaker 1: a basket for sunscreen and bug spray, and so forth.
Speaker 1: And you can certainly try to make this all look nice.
Speaker 1: Some people like to construct a cabinet where they store
Speaker 1: bins with pretty colored fabric to hold everything. The baskets
Speaker 1: on top of the cabinet are all coordinated to match.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to look chaotic just because it is
Speaker 1: not an official mudroom. I will note that if you
Speaker 1: have a garage, you can probably put a lot of
Speaker 1: the launch Pad stuff in your garage. Coats could likely
Speaker 1: stay out there, and shoes and sunscreen. You probably don't
Speaker 1: want to leave your purse in the garage, so maybe
Speaker 1: that goes somewhere else near the door. But for a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, the garage is fine, and that means
Speaker 1: you don't have it cluttered all over the interior of
Speaker 1: your house. But honestly, even if it does look a
Speaker 1: little cluttered, we are interested in efficiency here. If your
Speaker 1: keys are not by the door a reasonable number of
Speaker 1: times when you are trying to leave, you will have
Speaker 1: to go back to get your keys. Same with shoes
Speaker 1: and coats. Getting out the door takes longer when stuff
Speaker 1: isn't by the door, so store stuff by the door
Speaker 1: in life will be more efficient. It might look a
Speaker 1: little messy, particularly if people just drop their shoes and
Speaker 1: coats by the door haphazardly, but you know what, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. They are in the right place, which means
Speaker 1: you are actually more organized than someone who has stored
Speaker 1: stuff neatly but out of the way, and for whom
Speaker 1: getting out the door is a longer and more stressful
Speaker 1: process than it needs to be. In the meantime, this
Speaker 1: is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the
Speaker 1: most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 1: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.