Works for Me Wednesday: Lunches and Clothes the Night Before

It's Wednesday, and that means it's time for another "Works for Me Wednesday" tip, as hosted by the blog carnival at We Are THAT Family. See this week's Works for Me Wednesday here.

I realize that for many of you organizistas, this is a total "duh" Works for Me Wednesday tip. For me, though, it's been a huge boon to our mornings. I pack lunches and lay out my daughter's preschool outfit and accesories the night before.

Most nights I'm packing lunches for both my older daughter (for preschool) and for my husband to eat at work. I try to do this right after dinner, but before the girls' bedtime. This enables me to give my preschooler a sneak preview of what she'll be taking - sometimes sampling bites so that she's familiar with what will be in the lunchbox. It also saves me the hassle of packing leftovers in a large container, only to unpack them and repack them into the lunch containers later.

As for the outfits, after I manage to get a few loads of laundry done, I usually hang together 3-4 coordinated outfits as I can, and after my preschooler's bath we look through the assembled outfits to pick one for her to wear the next day. (I also check the weather for the next day during this process to make sure that the outfit is temperature-appropriate.

Taking the initiative on these two things the night before really saves me stress and energy the morning-of, because I can ask my preschooler to get herself dressed, and the only thing left is to feed her breakfast and get her into the car with her lunch cold from the fridge.

Packing lunches and selecting outfits the night before works for me!

What do you do the night before to save yourself some time and energy the morning-of?