It’s About Time: Stay Organized by Tackling 1, 5, and 15 Minute Tasks

I once read a book about a man whose wife divorced him because he was a total slob. He wanted to clean up his act, but he wasn’t going to spend longer than absolutely necessary on any chore. So he timed himself doing various household tasks to find the most efficient method.

With dishes, he assumed it was better to let them pile up in the sink and soak, then wash the whole load at once. To his surprise, rinsing and putting them into the dishwasher right after eating was much quicker.

If you’re familiar with productivity expert David Allen’s 2-Minute Rule, this won’t surprise you.

The 2-Minute Rule states that if you can do something in two minutes or less, do it now instead of putting it off for later.

It’s more efficient to get little tasks out of your way than it is to let them build up into mountains of work.

My client Meredith* knows this first hand. We had cleared, sorted, and organized several rooms in her  home, but Meredith struggled to keep it up. The mail piled up in front of the door, dishes overflowed the sink, and hills of laundry littered the bedroom floor. While we cleared the backlog, I had Meredith time herself doing routine tasks so she’d have a realistic sense of how long things take.

Meredith found that she liked the challenge of timing herself and how it turned chores into games. If it took her 18 minutes to fold laundry one time, she’d try to beat the clock and do it in 17 minutes the next time. Now she knows that putting off chores only makes them grow, so she’s more motivated to get them out of the way.

Here are some tasks that you can start timing yourself doing chores. Work a few of them into your daily and weekly routines and you’ll find it’s easier to maintain your home and you’ll be less stressed

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