Simply Clean Saturday: Things you can do in 10 minutes!

One of my goals for the New Year was to be more organized. Out of all of my goals, I think this one is going to be the most challenging for me. It seems like I’m always on the go and when I think about taking time to clean and organize, I just feel overwhelmed. Plus, I have two small children who aren’t really able to help with household tasks and it seems like as soon as I get one thing done, they’re undoing it. So, I get frustrated and things start to pile up.

Saturdays are particularly difficult because that’s my day to get all of my grocery shopping done for the week and my day to really deep clean and to run all of our other errands.

In an effort to start getting more organized without getting overwhelmed, I decided to come up with some household tasks that can be done in 10 minutes or less. It’s hard to find large chunks of time throughout the day, but I think anyone can come up with ten minutes!

Here are a few of the things that I came up with:

Tasks for the kitchen (in 10 minutes or less) ~
*Unload the dishwasher and wipe down the counters

Tasks for the bathroom (in 10 minutes or less) ~
*Scrub the toilet and clean the tub

Other household tasks ~
*Sort through the mail and throw out “junk mail”

*Vacuum one room

*Fold a load of laundry

What tasks can you do in 10 minutes or less?

Comments

  1. have you ever been to http://www.flylady either dot com or dot net, I think its dot com. anyway, she has a 1 hour in the morning and about 1 hour at night and 15 minutes during the day, even tasks for kids. Even if you dont do it, its a nice thought that helps keep you moving on cleaning. and you can get emails on whats the task for the day. just one area at a time. I love it. Or I have a friend that keeps her pjs on all monday, has ready made meals for her kids b and lunch and thats the day they can watch tv ALL DAY. she vac, mops, dusts each room and cleans the bathroom, sheets. The rest of the laundry is throughout the week, but besides dishes or picking up kids messes, her house has started out clean each week with little to do the rest of the week and can spend time with her kids.

  2. As Kelli said, Fly Lady is awesome.

    Another good one is the Crockpot Lady, Stephanie O'Dea. Aside from her crockpot website (www.crockpot365.blogspot.com), she also has a website called Totally Together. Check it out at http://www.totallytogetherjournal.com.

    Each day she is giving step by step things to do to keep your life and you house in order on the Totally Together site. It is all simple and to the point, to keep from overwhelming us.

    I have five boys- so I totally understand where you are coming from!

    Crystal & Co.

  3. Thanks for the comments ladies! I have done Flylady in the past (after my dd was born) and it was a lifesaver, but even that seems overwhelming to me right now! Maybe I need to check it out again….

    I didn't realize Stephanie O'Dea had an organization website, too! I love her crockpot blog and her cookbook (just got it for Christmas)

  4. I use this website to keep things under control for cleaning. http://www.12minutestogo.com She sends you a daily email as well to keep track of what you should be doing that day. I am also trying to get organized this year!!

  5. I have been developing a 20 minute per day routine which tends to work out as 2 10 minute routines anyway. In the morning I wipe down the bathroom and pick up dirty clothes and in the evening I go around and pick up all the stray toys, shoes, and garbage. It has really helped keep down the clutter 🙂 I also started posting a chore schedule with my MPM, seems like once it's out there for everyone to see I feel more committed to getting it done.

  6. I was thinking of Fly Lady, too, when I read this. When I "spot" clean, I always imagine myself just "flying" through my work and trying to get the task done in under 15 minutes.

    Some of my ideas for 10 minutes or less cleaning:

    wipe the bathroom mirror clean

  7. I accidentally hit enter too soon.

    The rest of my ideas:

    vacuum the rug in one room

    pick out your clothes (or the kids' clothes) for the next day

    make the kids' lunches for the next day

    Of course, when you add all the tasks together, they tend to be more than 10 minutes in lenght! lol