(Get your mind out of the gutter, it’s NOT what you’re thinking!)
I have a friend who swears by the five minute method of housework. Whenever she has a spare five minutes she pulls a card out of the front of her specially created index card box, and does the 5 minute housework task that is written on it.
Once completed, the card goes at the back of the box … and so forth. So every few months she knows she has rotated through all the cards, and all the little tasks that might not otherwise get done except in a big spring clean.
Ha.
It SO doesn’t work for me.
The curtains and pelmets above our bed had been annoying me for quite some time. They looked like something from Miss Havisham’s house – and believe me, if the dust is thick enough for ME to notice without my glasses, you know it’s getting out of control.
So I decided to dust them. A simple, 5 minute chore, you might think.
Except … one thing lead to another.
As I stood on our bed to dust the pelmets, I realised the blinds could use a swipe too.
Which meant that dust bunnies then merrily cascaded down the wall and onto our bedside tables, and the sheets.
So now I had to strip the bed and wash the sheets, AND dust the bedside tables and everything on them.
Which I did, before making up the bed again.
Standing back to admire my handiwork, I looked down at the carpet and saw yet more dust bunnies making their bid for freedom, perhaps thinking that under the bed would be as good a hiding place as any.
By this stage I couldn’t be jiggered to get out the vacuum cleaner, so they will live on for another day.
And my quick five minute chore had become half an hour or more …
No wonder my favoured method for dealing with the housework is to just leave my glasses off!
What household (or other) chore do you put off, because you know it will just create more work?!
I totally hear what you are saying – now I just don’t look !!!!!
Have a great week !
Me
Yep, one of the advantages of getting older and needing glasses I guess 🙂
Putting toys away. I always feel I have to do it during the day and then do it again 3 times before the day is out. Just leave it, do it once, I say x
Yep great thinking – do it at night so at least it stays tidy for a little while 🙂
lol i avoid mopping because to do that you first have to put everything away and then you need to vacuum or sweep before mopping! if my house was always neat i would break out the mop – someone is always in the middle of something that involves a mess of epic proportions (and sometimes it is even me who is the mess maker lol)
Oh wow I have the same problem!
I love this! The 5min is a great idea, but you sound like my husband, he can never do a 5min job. I have been putting off cleaning the dust off our bedroom fan.
Ooo I read a great tip for that – put an old pillowcase over each blade in turn, that way it captures all the dust without creating extra mess!
Ignoe it and hope the cleaning fairies do it is my fave way of doing housework!! I agree once you start there is always something else therefore I rarely start!!
Oh I know this scenario very well. It happened just recently when I decided to give Twin1’s room a vacuum and strip the sheets off his bed. I stripped the sheets off and put them in the washing machine. I started to vacuum. Then noticed the blinds (timber) were coated in dust so they needed vacuuming and wiping and then I noticed the dust on his tall boy and on all the stuff on his bookshelf and one thing led to another and I was in there for hours and hours!! I think the leaving our glasses off idea is a good one!! Min xo
Yep, I swear by it!
I’m in awe someone would create cards and a box for housework – I wouldn’t even get that done!!
LOL yeah tell me about it!
The index card idea wouldn’t work here, I would be the same, get stuck into something and heaps of other things would -need- to be done. I am glad I don’t have pelmets, but where does all that dust then go?! It has to go somewhere..
Oh it has to be the clothes folding! I’m always leaving it until the end of the week or even until a week and a half! Don’t really know why I do it though.
Speaking of which – I have a pile waiting for me right now 😉
Dusting, because I could dust twice a day and still find something to dust. It’s not that we have a lot of dust collectors, our house is just on a busy road. I try and dust once a week, and I do a quick whip around if the MIL’s car appears in the driveway.
xx
LOL Luckily my M-I-L lives 2 hours away and always lets us know before she visits!
Oh I’ve been putting off cleaning the fridge.
And the windows. I hate doing both of them.
I wish I could do the 5 minute thing, but I’m like you Janet, get sidetracked.
My job to avoid is cleaning the blinds, blahhh! x
Yeah housework sucks.
No housework chore last five minutes – it is a myth! Everything I start – leads to a hundred other things. Last week I decided to defrost both our freezers – that has quenched my need to clean anything for a very long time xx
ALL OF THEM – okay so filing the bills, especially those that have been paid – great suggestion! Em xx
Yep I hate that too!