What can you do in five minutes?

9 August 2017

I’m a big believer in using a timer to motivate me to work quickly and get stuff done. I have a seriously full calendar but a relatively free morning today so I thought I’d see if I could some clutter spots and other small tasks taken care of.

So I pulled out my phone and asked Siri to set a timer for five minutes. I did it seven times. Here’s what I managed to accomplish in just seven five-minute blocks:

I printed a couple of genealogy-related documents, wrote a cover note, and mailed them to a friend who doesn’t have internet access.
I whittled away at my email inbox, taking it from 78 messages to 35 in two five-minute sessions
I took out of the car and put away a bunch of containers that I’d taken to a client session
I inventoried those containers
I put away and inventoried a different of set of bins that are stored in my basement
I cleared off the completely cluttered countertop in our extra kitchen. It had become a bit of a dumping ground (to say the least).

That’s a lot of distracting clutter busted in just 35 minutes!

Because I apparently have no shame, I’ll share with you that cluttered counter and how it looked five minutes later.

It’s not amazing, but it’s a heck of a lot better for a really small investment of time and effort. (This is a room I don’t spend much time in, but I’d been turning a blind eye for so long!)

Your turn. Do you have a spare five minutes? What can you do in that time to make a difference in your home?

Tagged with: declutter, decluttering, timer