The Five Minute Rule That Transformed My Home

For most of my adult life, between balancing a career, social life, and living on my own, I had the tendency to let the little day-to-day care tasks in my home pile up each week. Then, usually on a Sunday afternoon, I would go on “lock down” and deep clean, put away, and organize everything. When I was living in a 750 square foot, one bedroom apartment, this took less than half a day and it worked for me. But as my living space got bigger, i added a husband and two dogs as cohabitants, my interests expanded to include messy projects like baking and crafting, and my full time corporate job grew in responsibility, I found myself getting overwhelmed on my cleaning days, or having to devote an entire weekend to getting caught up, and ultimately falling way behind on taking care of my home.

Some people can live with a messy home, and that’s great. I thought maybe that’s just who I was, too, and tried to live with it. But the truth of the matter is I’m a libra raised by a libra, which means i need my surroundings to be aesthetically pleasing. After letting that overwhelm overtake my living space for too long, I realized that being surrounded by a home I personally wasn’t proud of was having a very negative impact on my mental health and confidence in all areas of my life. I needed to change, and fast. But how? I couldn’t sacrifice my career, fitness goals, social life, or interests just so I could take more time for chores.

Somewhere, probably on social media, I heard about the five minute rule and immediately shrugged it off - I was looking for a massive overhaul of how I kept my house clean, not a tiktok trend. But then, as we moved into our current home, I found myself following this rule (maybe subconsciously) and it is not hyperbole when I say that it has transformed my home, and my mental health as it relates to my home. It’s so incredibly simple that it’s easy to ignore, but I promise it works.

The Five Minute Rule: If it takes less than five minutes to do, do it now.

That’s all it is. If you’re not rushing out the door or about to hop on a zoom call and you see a small task that needs to be done, just do it.

For me, the five minute rule helps in two ways. First, the small tasks are often the things that are most noticeable, so tackling them makes your home look and feel neater, which is an instant serotonin boost for someone like me. Second, it really puts tasks into perspective. I used to let laundry and dishes pile up because they were “too time intensive”, but now I know I can empty the dishwasher or change over a load of laundry in the time it takes to brew a cup of coffee and that’s a much better use of my time than another three minutes of doom scrolling on my phone. And, with these small tasks consistently out of the way, you only need to focus on the bigger tasks, like vacuuming or cleaning bathrooms, during dedicated “cleaning times”.

So, yes, unfortunately the only way to keep a truly clean home is to work at it every day. Fortunately, it doesn’t need to be some big effort and with this simple five minute rule, it will become a habit that benefits you, your home, and your mental health.