In Just Five Minutes...

When I was in high school, there were a few daily duties I had to complete everyday that I described as the “bane of my existence.”

In no particular order, here are the two I can recall as the “most annoying”:

1. Cleaning out my swim bag – including hanging up my towel, cap, and swim suit, replenishing the power bar pocket, and tossing my running shorts in the hamper

2. Studying Latin vocabulary flashcards (50 every week) and taking notes in my SAT tutoring sessions.

As an adult, this list has not changed much. Two of my least favorite chores are:

1. Doing laundry

2. Cleaning the kitchen (including vacuuming, unloading the dishwasher, and wiping off the stove top)

It’s funny how certain hatreds do not change much – thankfully, relatively early on I made a discovery that changed my approach to such despised responsibilities so that now, they don’t seem so painful anymore.

Maybe the adaption was organic, but when I was sixteen my dedication to cleaning out my swim bag every night and studying flashcards was sporadic and distracted by procrastination. I rarely did these things consistently (daily), and I often found myself cramming all 50 vocabulary flashcards in to one Sunday night study marathon study session or left with only damp dirty towels since I hadn’t done a wash in days.

Let’s be honest: nobody likes to study flashcards for two hours straight. So, somewhere along the line I tried something different: one day, I studied 25 cards on Saturday and 25 on Sunday.

And then I had an idea: what if I broke down my list of 50 vocabulary words in two groups of ten and studied a set of ten for five minutes every day?

Hence, the birth of what I like to call “the just-for-five-minutes-a-day” tactic for tackling “icky” jobs. Have a kitchen that needs to be cleaned? Give it a whirl for five minutes, everyday. I promise – you will be pleasantly surprised at not only how much you can accomplish in five minutes – but also, how you’ve just turned a seemingly daunting hour-long job in to a manageable and relatively stress-less accomplishment.

This isn’t to say you won’t spend the same amount of time doing the laundry or studying, per se – but it will lighten the anticipated dread to a level that makes any task seem absolutely manageable – and you won’t be left towel-less in a dirty kitchen.