It’s no shock to anyone that cleaning and maintaining a home is an incredibly Sisyphean feat. There are endless rules and hacks for overcoming the daunting task of doing so, from carving out special time every day to channeling your deepest emotions to get it done.
As a chronic procrastinator, I’ve tried so many of these different rules and while so many of them work, none of them have stuck. So, instead of taking to the internet for yet another hack with questionable longevity, I decided to make my own. Know thyself, right?
The cleaning rule that I made for myself not only gave me immediate results, but I’ve kept it up for months now, and my house (and brain) has never felt more fresh and organized.
The Rule
It may sound incredibly simple, but hear me out: The rule I made for myself is if it takes five minutes or less, it must be done immediately.
I know it’s intuitive, but the important thing here is that it does not matter what the task is, it must happen as I am convincing myself to put it off for later.
Taking shoes off at the door? Put them on the shoe rack instead of walking past. Leaving a single dirty dish in the sink? Wash it by hand or put it in the dishwasher instead of “letting it soak.” Opening packages? Take all the boxes and trash outside instead of leaving them by the door.
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The Results
Because I don’t give myself the chance to put off the small tasks, everything suddenly becomes a lot more manageable in the long term: shoes don’t pile up by the door, dishes don’t sit in the sink waiting to be loaded into the dishwasher, and big trash doesn’t accumulate waiting for the “right time” to be taken out.
These are small examples, but they extend to every part of the house—stripping the bed, putting folded laundry away, cleaning mirrors. The list goes on and on.
In talking about my newfound cure-all to (admittedly) everyone I know, my sister pointed out that this is also a well-known remedy for procrastination and that is no surprise to me. It gets at the fundamental basis of the idea of “don’t put it down, put it away”: why put off something for later if you can do it now?
Now, I’ve in no way cured my procrastination, but this has helped me manage the little things that snowball over time and make cleaning feel like an insurmountable task when the time comes to do it. It allows me to get into the cleaning headspace more easily, and indulge in tasks that would otherwise be left for another time.
Instead of putting a single bowl in the sink to deal with “tomorrow,” I wash it. But now that I’m at the kitchen sink and cleaning, I might as well give the countertops a wipe-down. And if I’m going to throw away the paper towels I used, I’ll just take out the trash since it’s getting pretty full. Oh, and since I’m going downstairs anyway, maybe I’ll consider throwing in a load of laundry if no one’s using the machine. And so on.
The best part about this is that with the tasks that I haven’t set out to do in under five minutes (like laundry), I don’t have to feel guilty if I decide I actually don’t want to do it. These tasks just get added to my regular weekend list of to-dos, which is feeling much lighter and more manageable since I achieved all the little things as they came up throughout the week.
The weekend cleaning slots are now reserved for the things that actually deserve a dedicated time and space: laundry, sweeping and mopping, and cleaning the stove, microwave, sinks, and shower.
