If you've ever rushed out of the house in the morning five minutes late, only to realize you left something important behind, or found yourself scrambling to finish a seemingly endless list of tasks at work before leaving the office in the evening, you know that these transitional times can often be the most disorganized parts of the day. But they don't need to be: with a few simple routines, you can keep your mornings and evenings--not to mention the times between--more organized, less stressful, and more efficient. Here's how.

Decide what needs to be done
One of the biggest causes of schedule chaos, regardless of the time of day, is allowing unnecessary tasks to creep into the time we really need to be devoting to the essentials. Taking time in the morning to check out your favorite entertainment news site, for example, might get in the way of finishing breakfast, getting dressed, or making sure you have the items you'll need for the rest of the day.

Before creating any sort of routine, then, start by making a list of the tasks you generally must do at a specific point during the day. Your morning list might include showering, eating breakfast, selecting an outfit, taking care of grooming, preparing a lunch, and checking the traffic report, while your evening list might include finalizing your work schedule for the following day, clearing off your desk, shutting down your computer, and running errands on the way home. In addition to your necessities list, make a list of optional tasks: those you like to do when you have time.

Make trade-offs
Once you have a solid idea of what you need (and want) to do at each transitional time during the day, take a look at your lists and see if there are tasks that you could do more efficiently at other times. For example, if you never feel fully awake in the morning until you've had a few cups of coffee, trying to choose an outfit for the day while you're half asleep might take longer and be a more frustrating experience overall; this could be the perfect task to do the night before, when you're able to think more clearly and have a bit more time.

As with any other organizing project, the idea here is to slot your tasks into the places where they'll fit best. Certain tasks will always need to be done at specific times, of course--you can't eat breakfast the night before--but by scheduling tasks for the times when you'll be able to do them most efficiently, you'll save time and frustration.

Get your routines in place
With your revised task lists in hand, write out routines for each portion of the day in which you normally do the same tasks; for many of us, this means morning, late afternoon/early evening, and night. (You might also have a lunchtime routine or an after-school routine.) Your routines should not only cover the tasks you listed above, but should also describe the order in which these tasks need to happen. For example, your nighttime routine might look something like this:

• Wash dinner dishes.
  
• Set kitchen table for breakfast.
  
• Prepare lunch for tomorrow; put lunch bag in fridge.
  
• Gather papers and supplies for work; put them in briefcase.
  
• Check weather for tomorrow.
  
• Choose outfit based on weather forecast.
  
• Get ready for bed.
  
• Set alarm for morning.
  
• Read, then go to sleep.
  

In practice, your routine will probably vary somewhat, but the idea here is to get a logical sequence of tasks down on paper, and to follow that sequence as best you can.

Make changes as needed
As you follow your routines throughout the week, you'll likely come across tasks you'd forgotten, or may find that you can take care of several tasks at the same time. Your routines should be flexible enough to accommodate these changes; forcing yourself to stick with a routine that doesn't work for you will ultimately be as inefficient as not following one at all. The important thing is to follow some sort of basic routine every day, regardless of whether it's exactly the same as what you started with.

There will always be days when unexpected tasks or occurrences throw us for a loop, when even the best plans won't be enough to prevent that mad dash out the door or a crazy and disorganized afternoon. But with some basic routines there to support you, you'll find that you're easily able to get back on track and to return to less stressful, more organized, more enjoyable days.