Once you have streamlined and moved most of your household tasks to large chunks of time in your calendar, you can now start to use 5-minute snippets of time to knock off some of the repetitive routine tasks on your list. This opens up more valuable chunks of time to get done bigger – and more valuable – projects.
I know it sounds kind of counterintuitive, but if you are always doing little tasks here and there, you never feel done. If you have a 4-hour time block set aside to do those tasks and can knock 30 minutes off during the week through six 5-minute chunks, you feel accomplished and organized!
Here are twenty tasks I do in 5-minute pockets of time to get you started thinking about what your twenty tasks will be:
- Start a load of laundry
- Empty the dishwasher
- Fold a load of laundry
- Clean off the kitchen counter
- Do the dishes
- Clean out a shelf in the pantry
- Empty all the trash cans
- Pick up toys in the family room
- Collect all the towels and start the laundry
- Vacuum a room
- Delete email and voicemail from your phone
- Change your furnace filter
- Take items up or downstairs
- Go through your mail and open it all
- Write a thank you note
- Book a doctor appointment
- Refill soap dispensers
- Clean out 1 drawer
- Shred paper
- Put 10 things away
Use those minutes you spend talking on the phone or waiting for people knocking off your repetitive tasks!
