The five minute clean up is my new best friend. One day I hauled each kid individually into their bedrooms with the requirement that we both clean as hard as we could for 5 minutes. At the end of 5 minutes the kid was done whether or not the room was clean. Two kids per room means that each room got 10 minutes worth of cleaning. Lo and behold 10 minutes was all it took to make the floors vacuumable again. I spent 20 minutes and each of the kids spent five.
On both of the nights since that project I have enforced a five minute clean up in our toy strewn family room. This time all the available children were drafted for the same five minutes. I really had to crack the whip to keep them moving, but at the end of five minutes the room was clean and I didn’t have to be mean any more.
I’ve also been applying this to myself. I’ll take 5 minutes and pick up my bedroom or my office or the front room. Doing a 5 minute pick up breaks down the huge “clean the house” task into bite size chunks. Everyone knows that bite size chunks are much easier to eat a lot of.
My house has been much nicer and cleaner these past three days. Yay for good advice via LJ!
FlyLady goes by the 15 minute rule. I’ve been trying to hold to it – but it’s easier to do 15 minutes when your child is nearly 14 😉 So far, it seems to be working.
FlyLady goes by the 15 minute rule. I’ve been trying to hold to it – but it’s easier to do 15 minutes when your child is nearly 14 😉 So far, it seems to be working.
5 minutes is all it takes
I’m glad the idea is working for you! You apparently figured out a way to make it work with each child. I’m guessing they each had a somewhat different reaction to the new way of doing things. What was the reaction of the Schlock-drawer in the house?
5 minutes is all it takes
I’m glad the idea is working for you! You apparently figured out a way to make it work with each child. I’m guessing they each had a somewhat different reaction to the new way of doing things. What was the reaction of the Schlock-drawer in the house?
I’m going to have to consider trying that here. Not that I have kids, but it sounds like it would be helpful for myself, too.
I’m going to have to consider trying that here. Not that I have kids, but it sounds like it would be helpful for myself, too.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I already sort-of do that for myself, because if I’ve got something cooking for 5 or 10 minutes that doesn’t require monitoring, I clean while it cooks. But I don’t cook every day, and some days I get distracted by something else. 5 minutes every single day would probably go a long way to making my house cleaner. 🙂
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I already sort-of do that for myself, because if I’ve got something cooking for 5 or 10 minutes that doesn’t require monitoring, I clean while it cooks. But I don’t cook every day, and some days I get distracted by something else. 5 minutes every single day would probably go a long way to making my house cleaner. 🙂