ready time

← All routines

🏫

Get them to school without the morning scramble.

The bell rings at 8:30 whether you're ready or not. Between waking kids, making breakfast, finding the other shoe, and driving there, there's almost no spare time. A backward plan turns that tight morning into a sequence you can follow step by step.

When one step runs long

School mornings rarely fail because of one disaster. They fail because five things happen in a row and one of them takes longer than you hoped. The kid who can't find socks. The cereal that spills. The backpack still at the bottom of the stairs. You can't prevent all of that, but you can budget time for it.

The plan in Ready Time

  1. Set the deadline. That's the time you need to be ready.
  2. Add your steps and how long each one really takes.
  3. Ready Time works backward and gives every step a start time.
School Drop-off
10 min Wake kids up 7:00 AM
15 min Get dressed 7:10 AM
20 min Breakfast 7:25 AM
10 min Teeth, shoes, backpack 7:45 AM
5 min Load car 7:55 AM
20 min Drive to school 8:00 AM
School Drop-off 8:30 AM

Build in the buffer

Ready Time works backward from the school bell. You add each step with honest durations, the ones that match real mornings rather than best-case guesses. If getting dressed takes 15 minutes including the sock negotiation, put 15 minutes. The plan tells you when to wake them so you arrive with a little time to spare.

Travel time to school

The drive above is a starting number. In the app, pick the real place, choose drive, walk, or bike, and Apple Maps fills in how long it takes.

Home School
🚗 20 min
🚗 Drive 🚶 Walk 🚴 Cycle
20 min Drive to school

Change where you're leaving from or how you're getting there, and every step before the drive shifts with it.

Can I share the drop-off plan with a grandparent or carpool driver?

Whoever is driving needs the leave time and everything in front of it. What usually gets passed along is 'be there by 8:30' and nothing else. Share the plan and it lands on their phone with its own alerts for every step, so they're working from your buffer instead of guessing at one. The 15 minutes you budgeted for the missing shoe goes with it.

Send it to whoever is driving today

Grandma gets the 7:00 wake-up and the same buffer you built in.

Her phone runs the alerts, so the plan doesn't arrive as 'be there by 8:30'.

👥 Shared by Dad
🏫 School Drop-off
10 min Wake kids up 7:00 AM
15 min Get dressed 7:10 AM
20 min Breakfast 7:25 AM
School Drop-off 8:30 AM
🏫 School Drop-off
10 min Wake kids up 7:00 AM
15 min Get dressed 7:10 AM
20 min Breakfast 7:25 AM
Ready Time 7:00 AM
Wake kids up. School Drop-off in 1h 30m
Ready Time 7:25 AM
Breakfast. School Drop-off in 1h 5m
Ready Time 8:00 AM
Drive to school. School Drop-off in 30m

Alerts when it's time to start

Get a nudge at the right moment, while there's still time to act.

Each step gets its own alert, so you know what's next and how long you have.

★★★★★
“A key part of my planning process. Well worth the investment.”
App Store review
Ready Time app icon

Ready Time

You know what you need to do. Ready Time helps you know when to start.

Keep planning

More on being ready on time