It’s easy enough for two adults to have piles of belongings out that need put away. Then when you add kids to the mix, there is always something not where it belongs. Most of the time, there are a lot of somethings not where they belong.
Everywhere I look, I see toys, paper, coloring stuff, mail, laundry and on and on. It stresses me out and puts me on edge. The blanket that our daughter has to have to go to sleep is harder to find. Even when you don’t have a ton of toys, goodness, can they ever get spread out.
The 5 minute pick up is a quick, easy, and painless way to keep mass amounts of stuff from being strewn around your house. 5 minutes, seriously! Who doesn’t have time for that?
Each night after the supper dishes are done, we set the timer for 5 minutes and have at it. Mom, Dad, and the 3 year old. With a little direction and finding things for her to put away, our daughter is more than capable of cleaning for 5 minutes. Little brother just crawls around and wonders what is going on. In a few months, when he’s able to follow basic commands, he’ll be able to participate by placing his ball in the toy box.
You’d be surprised what a difference just 5 minutes can make. Things can go from looking like a tornado has gone through to being relatively put together. Depending on how messy your house gets during the day, you might want to make a few 5 minute pick ups a part of your routine: once before lunch, once in the afternoon, and once after dinner. On a night our house is especially destroyed, we’ve been known to have a 10 minute pick up. Do what works best for your family.
It’s way more relaxing to go to bed not worrying that you might trip and fall when you are up with the kids in the middle of night and knowing that you don’t have a disaster to tackle in the morning because it’s already taken care of!
What do you do to try and keep the toys and clutter picked up in your house?
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Somehow, this simple idea sounds like a brilliant solution to the increasingly frustrating battle of cleanup at our house! More hands make less work, and surely we can all scrape together enough energy to make a team effort for just 5 minutes of work after dinner and baths, right?? 🙂
It is easy and soooo helpful! It makes me much happier and picking up is always more fun when others are helping.
I am great at this, now if I could just get my husband and daughter on board lol.
Lol! Thankfully my husband does it willingly when I ask and my daughter is only 3 so she goes along with whatever.
Thanks so much for stopping by and the comment on my blog. Always love new visitors. And nice to find your blog. Love your five minute cleanup. Clutter makes me more anxious than dirt for some reason. And dirt makes me plenty anxious. Pinning this one to my organization board.
Me too! The pick pieces of stuff everywhere drives me nuts. Plus it hurts to step on on of my daughter’s toys and dirt doesn’t. 🙂
Fantastic idea! We usually tell the kids they need to clean up something before doing something else. I’m sure they would be more willing to participate if they saw the entire family picking up.
That’s supposed to be our rule as well – pick up your first toy before you take out something else. We are still working on making it actually happen on a regular basis though. 🙂 So this helps a lot.
I do this with my kids too. It’s called the 10 minute clean. I apply it not only to picking up clutter, but also to specific cleaning jobs. They each get a job and so does mom. If they get their job done before mom finishes hers(and it’s done right) thy might get a reward.
Great idea for using it for specific cleaning jobs. I’m going to have to implement that when our kids get a little older. A lot can get accomplished in 10 minutes and I’m sure they love beating you!
Such a great idea. I love it that you’ve got your three year old involved already! I agree that picking up after dinner is the best time. Thanks for sharing this great idea!
Thanks, Carrie! It’s crazy what a difference it makes and it’s so easy. She loves helping (most of the time) so I figure I should keep her involved as much as possible!
This is my first visit to your site! I love the idea and the pictures, glad to see my house isn’t the only one that looks like that!! 🙂
It’s definitely not the only one! My house looks like that more than I’d care to admit. Those kids are like tornadoes of toy destruction. Of course my mail and papers don’t help matters any either. Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
Ha! I have the same computer with the pile of papers and mail! 🙂
That’s awesome! Papers love to pile up. I need to come up with a better organizational system!
Our house does the 10 minute tidy (my kids know this WELL) 🙂 it makes a world of a difference! And it makes mom be able to think more clearly. I’m visiting from. http://Www.aheartforthehome.com.
Love the 10 minute tidy! As the kids get older we might have to start doing that. I agree completely! It helps my peace of mind so much! Thanks for stopping by.
This is such a great routine for family life!
Thanks for linking up at Essential Fridays.
Blessings
Mel from Essential Thing Devotions
It really does help our day to day life! Amazing what a little less clutter can do for a mother’s sanity. Thanks for hosting!
It really doesn’t take much to make a difference does it? We do this a couple times a day and it’s a real sanity saver. I like having things relatively neat when my husband walks in the door at the end of the day.
Thanks for sharing at Family Fun Friday! I’m featuring your post this week.
You are right! Just a tiny bit can make a big transformation. I’ll have to start doing it a couple times a day once we start being home the entire day. It would help a lot. I know Kenna having to pick-up her toys also makes her a lot more careful to not just dump the toy closet out. Thanks for hosting!
The before and after pictures say it all! Great idea. Thanks for linking up with the Let’s Get Real party. I hope you’ll join us again this week.
Thanks for hosting and stopping by! It makes a huge difference. Toys and clutter like to pile up!
That looks awesome! Your house looks cozy too. I would love for you to share at the Bacon Time weekly linky, if you haven’t already. It posts weekly on Fridays.
It makes such a difference! When are home isn’t cluttered with toys and papers it is pretty cozy, lol! Thanks for sharing about your linky. I’ll have to check it out. (Now I just need to remember to actually do it tomorrow!)
I LOVE this idea! I feel like I am usually the one that is doing the picking up most of the time. 5 minutes is nothing and with two little girls and a very helpful husband this can get done in 4! 🙂
Thanks!
Hello from Fabulously Frugal Thursday! It’s amazing what five minutes can do. At least once a day we stop for a couple minutes to have a cleaning dance party. Usually involving Abba or Styx.
LOVE the idea of doing it to music. How fun. My daughter would love that. Thanks for sharing.
Great routine! Thanks for sharing this tip. 🙂
It makes such a difference! I need to do another one.
I love this and need to implement it more often. Right now I am working on putting every dirty dish in the dishwasher as soon as we are done with it. It’s weird that is something that has to be taught. We always just left it in the sink or on the counter.
You are right! I’m trying to teach our daughter to at least put her plate on the counter so I can rinse it and sometimes in the dishwasher. Otherwise it just gets left on the table. I’m needing to do an other 5 minute pick up!
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I love this. I really needed to read something like this today! I am so glad I found your blog on the linky party at LivingWellSpendingLess.com. With a 2 year old and a 1 year old I feel like I can never keep up. I am going to try the 5 minute thing after every meal. Hoping that helps keep me afloat. Thank you so much!
I’m so glad you stopped by, Ashley! I hear you on feeling like it’s impossible to keep up. It’s crazy what a difference 5 minutes makes. I hope that it helps you!
When we were showing our last house, I was always surprised at how fast it was to keep clean if we did it daily. -Tabitha
So true. It does come together much quicker if I keep on top of it. Actually doing it, not so easy for me.
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With eight children things can quickly get out of control in our home too. I often do this although I’ll say ten or fifteen minutes and include sweeping the floors or dusting, etc. Just a little more deep cleaning while we tidy up together. I always find I have more willing helpers if they know there is a time limit.
That’s a good idea to had in cleaning stuff instead of just picking up. 15 minutes still isn’t that long. As our kids get older I’ll have to do that!
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