119 – Twenty 5-Minute Tasks

119 - Twenty 5-Minute Tasks Lisa Woodruff 20:53

Once you have streamlined and moved most of your household tasks to large chunks of time in your calendar, you can now start to use 5 minute snippets of time to knock off some of the repetitive routine tasks on your list. This opens up more valuable chunks of time to get done bigger – and more valuable – projects.

I know it sounds kind of counterintuitive, but if you are always doing little tasks here and there, you never feel done. If you have a 4-hour time block set aside to do those tasks and can knock 30 minutes off during the week through six 5-minute chunks, you feel accomplished and organized! Here are twenty tasks I do in 5-minute pockets of time to get you started thinking about what your twenty tasks will be:

Start a load of laundry
Empty the dishwasher
Fold a load of laundry
Clean off the kitchen counter
Do the dishes
Clean out a shelf in the pantry
Empty all the trash cans
Pick up toys in the family room
Collect all the towels and start the laundry
Vacuum a room
Delete email and voicemail from your phone
Change your furnace filter
Take items up or downstairs
Go through your mail and open it all
Write a thank you note
Book a doctor appointment
Refill soap dispensers
Clean out 1 drawer
Shred paper
Put 10 things away

Use those minutes you spend talking on the phone or waiting for people knocking off your repetitive tasks!

Lisa Woodruff Founder & CEO of Organize 365®

Lisa Woodruff is the founder & CEO of Organize 365®.

Lisa, along with 87% of America, believes organization is a learnable skill. Yet less than 18% of those same Americans feel they are organized. Through The Productive Home Solution course, Lisa aims to teach Americans young and old the skill of organizing and unlocking their time for what they are uniquely created to do.

As the host of the top-rated Organize 365® Podcast (which has 17 million downloads and counting) Lisa shares strategies for reducing the overwhelm, clearing the mental clutter, and living a productive and organized life. Her sensible and doable organizing tasks appeal to multiple generations. Her candor and relatable personality make you feel as though she is right there beside you; helping you get organized as you laugh and cry together.

Under Lisa’s direction, Organize 365® has conducted academic research establishing the definitions of housework, home organization and the weight of paper in the American home. This ongoing research is making the invisible work at home visible to all. The goal is to eliminate it and free people from the monotonous tasks of daily living; and unlock their time for what they are uniquely created to bring forth in the world.

She is the author of four books including: How ADHD Affects Home Organization and The Paper Solution. Lisa’s understanding of the lived female American experience has helped her to create products & courses like the Sunday Basket®. These products and courses externalize the routine tasks that take up the executive functioning capacity of our brains; freeing us up to think and create again!