I always dreaded cleaning or organizing. I am not born organized so I have had to train myself to be organized. Often, my problem staying organized is that I think about the thing that needs to be done so much that I begin to dread it. Here are a few tips I used to change my attitude about the things I dreaded:
Time yourself to see how long it takes to do a chore.
~Two days ago I cleaned the fridge. It took me two minutes to clean off one shelf. After a child meltdown, I came back and finished. It took me 10 minutes to clean the entire thing and that included three minutes cleaning up a mess from my two year old "helping" by dumping something on the floor.
~I used to hate to make the bed. Then I timed myself. It takes me exactly 1 minute.
~To clean-out my "plasticware" shelf, it took me five minutes.
~To clean the bathroom sink and toilet, it took me five minutes including wiping down the floor. Adding the tub (removing the contents and cleaning) took another 5 minutes so it took only ten minutes to clean the entire thing!
It really doesn’t take as long as you would think to get cleaned and organized. When you realize it only takes one minute or ten minutes to do something, it doesn’t seem so bad!
Do one thing for five minutes and see how far you can get.
Identify the thing that is bugging you the most and do it first!
Often, we have lots of little things that need to be cleaned, repaired or organized, but we don’t want to deal with them right now. Sometimes it pays to just make the time rather than to keep putting it off.
Our front door is mostly glass. The fingerprints on the front door were driving me crazy! While David was eating, instead of doing the dishes, I ran down and wiped the down the door. (It took 3 minutes.) It has been bugging me for days. As soon as I took the three minutes to do it, it was off my mind and I could go on and do the dishes.
I have always dreaded unloading the dishwasher. One day, I timed myself and it takes only three minutes. Keeping that in mind, it doesn’t seem so bad.
Mike wanted to change the door knob on our front door. It didn’t work correctly and we kept getting locked out. He bought a new door knob, but he was in the middle of another project and didn’t change it right away. One day, after sidestepping it for a while, he decided to stop everything else and change it. It took five minutes. He said if he had known that’s all the time it would take, he never would have waited so long to do it.
Most of the time we spend more time thinking about these things than just taking the time to do it and get it over with! Now walk away from the computer and take care of that thing that is bothering you! 
Tawra
For more easy cleaning tips to make your life easier, take a look at our Keeping It Clean e-books.
What GREAT advice!! I’m going to tackle a slew of those 5 – 10 minute dreaded tasks starting TODAY
Wow, this sounds so easy, i can take care of my whole house in less then one hour…
thanks for the advice.
I keep a scrub brush with a handle on it hanging in the shower from my shower caddy. While I am showering I put shampoo or body soap on it and scrup down the shower tub and all then I just take down the shower head and rinse it off, and myself
Everyone in the family knows what the brush is for so they don’t use it. Takes me about 1.5 min. to wash the tub and shower and the tile looks great now and I don’t have to get into the shower with my clothes on and then get in again to clean up. 
I set the timer for 15 minutes. I can get my whole downstairs picked up and wiped down in that time. That includes wiping down 1 and 1/2 bathrooms, master bdrm, laundry rm, kitchen, dining room, living room, and (sort of) the office ~ that doesn’t always get done
. I don’t dust, and sometimes I vacuum (just quickly in the middle,) sometimes not. Anyway, 15 minutes can make the place look really clean. I do more if I have time, but if not, it is definitely presentable.
I keep a small squeegee on a hook inside the shower and a microfiber cloth over by the door. Each time I shower, I squeegee the door and wipe down any remaining water droplets. Because I live in AZ, the water is hard and leaves residue. This remedies that problem and leaves my shower looking great every day. Then, only the walls(2) have to be cleaned every week.
I have been thinking about publishing a video myself about emptying the dishwasher! Most people miss one key thing about how to empty a dishwasher quickly — start with a clean counter above the dishwasher. then open one cabinet (in my case, the one above th4 dishwasher where we store glasses, plates bowls and saucers,) and unload into that cabinet. There are three other general areas to my kitchen — the other side of the sink, the drawers I am standing in front of, and across the kitchen under the stove. Every time I remove something that does not go into the cabinet above me, I lay it in on the counter, making 3 groups to go to the other areas of the kitchen. then when I’m done with the cabinet above, I pick up the items in one of the three groups and take them to the area they go into in one trip each. (I save the silverware for last.)3 minutes top — usually less!
My housekeeping was a disaster until I started doing it this way. I have fibromyalgia and it is so easy to just rest and I was resting to the point I got nothing done. There are times when I still do nothing if a bad flare is raging but I started timing myself loading and unloading the dishwasher and could do both in 5 minutes. I have to go to the kitchen to take my medication and I am seldom so sick I can’t stand there for that tiny bit of my day. I moved into a different house last April and it has a place to put in a dishwasher but it didn’t have one installed. When the house was being restored they put in all new cabinets and counter tops but put them in the same configuration as was in this house that is well over 100 years old. There was not room for the dishwasher by the sink so they put it about 5 ft away. That means that I would have to rinse the dishes and then put them over to the dishwasher. All I could think of was what a mess that would be and how often I would be mopping the floor. So now I wash dishes and find it doesn’t take any longer than using the dishwasher did and I’m not buying that expensive dishwasher detergent. I always made hot soapy water to clean the stove and counter tops so I’m getting my dishes washed in the same soapy water. I put a curtain that matches my window curtains over the space and have some plastic storage shelves on wheels in there for potatoes and onions. I can’t even remember why I thought I neded a dishwasher and I really do a lot of cooking because I have my 3 grands 4 12 hour days a week. I always clean my bathroom in the nude. LOL I already have a cloth that’s wet and I use it to wipe off anything that needs it including the shower area. I too, use an old bath brush for an area that meeds scrubbing but by hitting it every day I don’t have to do too much. I’ve found that it is so much easier to do it as I go along than letting it build up to being a big job. Then I am in trouble. Granny’s big helper just turned three and she really can do a good job dusting and cleaning the TV screen. She loves to spray the cleaner on and just gets tha cleaning cloth going fast dusting. There are times I have to go over it again but usually she does fine. These girls have cooked at my elbow since they were babies on a step stool. Now at 7 and 9 the older two can cook a simple meal with supervision. I’m not ready to sit down in my easy chair while they are in the kitchen but they really do know how to read directions and follow them. The meal tonight was little smokies cooked in BBQ sauce, corn and twice baked potatoes. They cooked the potatoes in the micorwave, cut them in half and put the potatoe pulp in my stand mixer. That made a quick job of mashing the potatoes. They added butter, sour cream and salt, then spooned it back into the skins. The 3 year old got to sprinkle the cheese on top and they melted the cheese back in the microwave. Dessert was cake the 3 year old and her mama made at their house. I really did nothing other than direct and set the table and they loved every minute of being able to cook. When the grandsons are here, they cook, too. Their dads have known how to cook at the same age as my daughter and the DIL’s are thankful for that. The job that they don’t like to do as they get older is run the vacuum cleaner. They all want to do it whan they are too small to do a very good job and now don’t want to do it since they can. With my fibro I couldn’t have the kids here all the time w/out them helping. There are days when we have had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because I am on the sofa but then they think it’s great fun as we spread an old blanket over the area rugs and have a picnic. I always have paper plates and napkins handy for my bad days and we get through them. My house is never the big mess it used to be when I was sick, before I leaned that the jobs are really all small if you rest in between them.
I’m like you Gayla I really don’t need a dishwasher. In all my 60 years this is the first house I have had a real dishwasher. I was really excited to have it at first but now I find I am back to hand washing. There are so many advantages to it. The main one being like you I need hot soapy water to wipe off the counters and stove any way. The other one being even though I had a really nice dishwasher I still found things which had to be rewashed again plus even though I rinse my dishes both ways I found I had to scrub them even more before putting them in the dishwasher so why not just hand wash them if I am going to do that much work anyway. I have known some people who fill the sink up with hot soapy water, wash them and put them in the dishwasher. I couldn’t figure out why they do that. It’s like washing them twice. No wonder some people hate doing the dishes.
jill .. so true . my mom used to say that if she had to rinse or pre-scrub a dish then why not take the time to just add some soap and wash it.. or better yet …get some hot soapy water in a sink or small tub and let the dishes soak while ur cleaning up the kitchen area/stove and putting all the leftovers in the fridge .. and hten just wash the dishes ..
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i remember a really long time ago they had those over the sink dishwaashers .. u just put everything in the dish drain and the cover it and hten turned on the faucet and at the other end of the faucet was this hose like thingy that sprayed ur dishes .. or soemthing like that .. not sure if it worked or not … does anyone remember that? or had one? .. i always wanted to know if it worked ..
our new apt doesnt have a dishwasher .. and my son mentioned that .. and me and hubby told him that htere were in fact 3 dishwashers there .. me, him and hubby .. hehehee