21 Things You Can Do in Five Minutes

Five minutes, 300 seconds, it doesn’t seem like much in the grand scheme of your day. But have you ever really timed it?  Once you do you’ll realize, as I did, how much you can accomplish in 5 minutes or less.

Throughout our days, we can all find pockets of available time such as a tv commercial break, while on hold with the pediatrician’s office or cable company, or that lull between telling your kids it’s time to go and when they are actually ready to walk out the door for practice or school.  This is a great time to mark an item off your to-do list.

Here’s a few suggestions of tasks that can be accomplished in 5 minutes:

1.  Clean out your purse or wallet
2.  Organize the junk drawer
3.  Throw in a load of laundry
4.  Water your plants
5.  Write a Thank You note
6.  Respond to an email
7.  Clean the microwave
8.  Vacuum the living room
9.  Put away a load of laundry
10.  Cull through old magazines
11.  Purge your makeup drawer
12.  Sort the mail
13.  Pay a bill online or over the phone
14.  Build some muscle with crunches, push-ups, or lunges
15.  Take out the trash
16.  Wipe down the front of the stove and refrigerator
17.  Wipe fingerprints off the sliding glass door or windows
18.  Sanitize your keyboard and mouse
19.  Load or Unload the Dishwasher
20.  Sweep the kitchen
21.  Breathe and relax

All these little things that add up on your to-do list can be worked into the fabric of your day with hidden patches of five minutes. When the end of the day comes, you’ll feel a calm knowing that you’re ahead of the game and relax without thoughts of the undone. I challenge you to set a timer and see what you can get accomplished in 300 seconds or less.