5 Minute Decluttering Tasks

5 Minute Decluttering Tasks You Can Do RIGHT NOW

Even though I write so much about organizing and decluttering, my house has fallen into a disaster more times than I can count. When you don’t know where to start, it’s a good indicator you NEED to declutter. These 5 minute decluttering tasks will help get you started and feeling better about the state of your house before the hour is up.

First thing’s first, let’s not waste our 5 minutes.

Walk into the messiest room of your house and see what your eyes notice first.

If you were to walk into my house right now, it would for sure be the kitchen and the kitchen sink.

The dishes weren’t even clean from breakfast when we had lunch.

Now I have a huge sink full of dishes that are spilling onto the counters.

Because I’m an absolute nut about using timers in cleaning, I can tell you exactly how long it will take me to rinse all of those dishes and get them into the dishwasher.

5 MINUTES.

Seriously.

Even a mess as big as this can be tackled in about a third of the time you’d probably think.

Here are some other tasks that you’d think would take WAY longer than they do. I’ve timed myself multiple times and if you move fast, you can get any of these things done in just about 5 minutes.

5 Minute Bathroom Tasks

Clear off the counter, put everything in bins underneath, wipe down the counter and sinks with a wet cloth.
Scrub the toilet, including wiping down the tank and base
Spray down the shower with an after shower spray
Gather all dirty towels/wash clothes/dirty clothes and take them straight to the laundry room

After you’ve completed your 5 minute task in the bathroom, spend an extra few minutes to wipe down the mirror and clean the baseboards.

Wiping down the baseboards in a room takes less than 2 minutes – especially for a room the size of a bathroom – but it’s what makes the room FEEL clean.

There’s decluttering, and then there’s cleaning.

I happen to love faking a clean house when I don’t have time to do a deep clean.

Going above and beyond for just 5 more minutes can really make all the difference.

5 Minute Laundry Tasks

Oh my goodness the bane of my existence.

If you’re surrounded by piles of laundry and have no idea where to start, let me tell you that there really is a secret to managing laundry.

My secret to having a laundry system that basically handles itself is this:

Create no-fold systems
Wash laundry by person, not color (using color catcher sheets to prevent dye transfer in the wash)

Once you have those two steps in place, these are the laundry tasks that take 5 minutes:

Empty the dryer, put a load into the washer
Put away an entire load of laundry – yes, it literally takes 5 minutes with no-fold systems set up
Sort a week’s worth of laundry by person

If you have everyone’s laundry washed individually, it all goes in the same place. You don’t have to sort it more than once.

Let’s work smarter, not harder.

Sort the laundry by person instead of color.

Then, you only have to put it away (or have your child put it away) when it’s done.

Traditionally, you’d sort by color and type, wash, dry, then sort it by person when putting it away.

Why all the sorting???

Try it my way and cut out half of the steps AND half of the time.

5 Minute Kitchen Tasks

Empty the dishwasher
Rinse dirty dishes and reload dishwasher
Throw away coffee grounds and wash coffee pot
Throw pre-prepared meat, veggies, and sauce into the crockpot for dinner
Declutter all counters
Wipe down the counters, sink, and front of appliances
Quickly go through the fridge for fuzzy leftovers and expired condiments
Spend 5 minutes purging the junk drawer
Spray vinegar and water inside the microwave, set for 1 minute, then wipe it clean

Believe me, I know what it feels like to be overwhelmed with the state of your house.

When I look around at a mess, I just see overwhelm. My ADHD brain doesn’t let me see the steps to get to a better place.

Over time, I’ve learned to lean on a timer and very specific tasks to help me move forward.

It has quite literally been a life-changer.