How to Practice 5 Minute Tasks
When I’m feeling unmotivated, I like to practice a cleaning hack called ‘5 minute tasks’ that helps get me out of procrastination mindset and into productivity mindset.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, this 5 minute practice can help kickstart a larger cleaning and tidying project. It’s a way to trick your brain out of procrastination and brings greater awareness around your home cleaning needs.
Procrastination can kick in when things feel unmanageable. The goal with practicing 5 minute tasks is to break things down into bit sized chunks. We’re making a task more manageable by putting a ‘dent’ in things.
Example: has your mail piled up? As time passes, the mail stack gets bigger and bigger each day. There might be a feeling of shame that gets attached to the mail stack. Each time you walk by, you see it as one big mail stack. It’s actually not one task. It’s a series of small tasks. Some of which, might just take you 5 minutes.
If you identify with this example and experience this in your home on a regular or semi-regular basis, try 5 minute tasks.
The process for this is fairly simple. 5 minutes of your time — that’s all you need. It only takes 5 minutes to go to the bathroom, scroll social media, order food from Door Dash…it’s not much time.
Pick a task…any task.
✅ Hand wash a couple of dishes
✅ Unload / load the dishwasher
✅ Fold some laundry or rotate the laundry
✅ Sort some mail
✅ Tidy up clothes off of the bedroom floor
✅ Scrub a sink
What If I Spend More Than 5 Minutes Cleaning or Tidying?
If you choose to spend more than 5 minutes on cleaning or tidying, this is ok! If you feel like you want to stop at the 5 minute point, make it a shame-free zone. Allow yourself the grace to say no, step away, and reserve cleaning for another time. Perhaps you choose a 5 minute task on the hour, every hour.
The idea of starting and stopping a project over and over again might not sound efficient…and it’s not. This is a practice in mindset mastery and motivation — not efficiency. The very act of starting a task conditions your brain to break things down so that cleaning and tidying becomes more manageable. The goal is to gain confidence vs. avoiding the task altogether.
How Can I Be More Efficient When Cleaning?
Overall, cleaning is most effective when you do it all at once. It’s more of a time investment up front, but you’ll clean less often. Your space will feel cleaner overall and it will stay clean for longer. Cleaning your space all at once decreases the amount of dust and debris in the home, which prevents cross tracking.
Use this 5 minute task system as a means to give yourself a motivational boost. Once you gain the confidence to work up to bigger cleaning sessions, calendar in half day or full day for a focused cleaning session.
Apple Watch for Time Tracking
The Apple Watch is a great option for ease of time tracking. ALSO, if you’ve sat the entire hour and you haven’t reached your standing/movement metrics for the day, it will remind you 5 minutes before the hour ends. This can be a great time to complete a 5 minute task if you’ve gotten lost in work or another project.
