The 5 Minute rule

I know the posts on the blog have been a lot of "check-in posts and updates" on our progress as we re-set a new year, and i'm glad to change the tone today.

After we got back from our family vacation in December (we went to visit family out in Utah), Hubs and I decided to make some changes to our daily routine, and our after work lives have been all the better for it, so I thought i'd share with you about our new "5-minute rule".

It's pretty simple, but its profoundly made us appreciate one another all the more.

If it takes only 5-Minutes to do, do it now... don't push it off till the end of the night, or the next day.

I know, earth shattering right?

Let me give you a real world example, from oh, say 5 minutes ago when I started typing this on the dinning room table. Before the 5-minute rule, after breakfast i'd dump the dishes in the sink and wait for little man to wake up to get dressed for daycare because he typically gets up anywhere between 5-25 minutes after hubs leaves for work. I'd make breakfast, pack our lunches, and if I was lucky, score 15 minutes of "me time" before I had to go in and wake him up.

At the end of the day, i'd come home, empty our lunch containers in the sink and play with little dude until hubs got home, then start in on dinner (or if dinner was more "involved" - stick some music or TV on and get started). I'd do a heavy sign and be slightly frustrated at the dishes in the sink, but I managed to cook dinner. Afterwards, I'd dump more dishes in the sink and box up leftovers. The result of our procrastination on the dishes front would result in about 30+ minutes of cleaning. Now my husband washes the dishes every night... (He's amazing)... but because we didn't rinse things off after using them, we doubled his work load...

A clean computer desk!

Which also meant.... we doubled his frustrations.... which meant there were nights where he just tossed in the towel and said, eh, i'll do them tomorrow and then we start the next day with a sink full of dirty dishes... which makes it harder to rinse things off... and when they would get washed or rinsed for the dishwasher, everything wouldn't fit because we had backed everything up and we have a much smaller dishwasher than we did at our old place...

Needless to say, hubs would pile the rinsed dishes on the counter  -- waiting for space in the dishwasher and we lived in a never ending cycle of dishes on the counter.

Enter the 5 minute rule...
So instead of dropping dishes in the sink from breakfast we take the less than 5 minutes to rinse and plop them in the dishwasher. Instead of coming home from work with a toddler to manage and the loom of dinner to get on the table... i'm starting with a clean kitchen, which makes it easy to take the 2 minutes to put our lunch containers aware and in the dishwasher.

With empty sinks, I can often rinse out and quickly hand wash something and use it again during the same meal prep, making for less dishes for hubs to do post dinner, which guarantees they get washed after dinner. Afterwards, if the dishwasher is mostly full, i'll just run it so I can empty it in the morning before work...

Other ways the 5-minute rule helps...

• Takes less than 5 minutes to tidy the living room at night and put the toys away... we are happier when we don't trip over things...
• Hubs keeps the computer desk clean now, cause it takes less than 5 minutes to clear it... less clutter makes me happy.
• Laundry, it get cycled whenever the machine is quiet on Friday night or Saturday, cause it takes less than 5 minutes...