I’ll  tell you something about myself. 

I get easily distracted.

Very easily

I start a task with enthusiasm,  but before long the whiff of something more interesting or creative and/or pressing has me wandering off and starting on something else before I’m finished the first thing.

Anyone else?

It happens too when I have so many things to do and  I’m not sure what to do first – so I start in on five things frantically and end up with a whole lot of things started but nothing finished. I’ll have the clothes washed but not hung out, a story half written, dishwasher half packed, clothes maybe folded but not put away.

Or I’ll get totally involved in something  I love doing  – something crafty or creative, writing, gardening, taking photos, rearranging a room – and end up doing none of whatever else I need to do that day.  Now that’s Ok if your kids don’t care about eating dinner or wearing clean clothes and –  if I was a totally bohemian free spirit who just enjoyed going where the mood led and who didn’t mind a mess – we’d be all good.

Here’s the problem though. I like things done. I like thing squared away and neat and clean far more than I do messy and thrown about.

I just can’t always seem to manage it.

Welcome  20 minute a day.

Game changer

A girl needs some sort of secret weapon up her sleeve to keep life a bit organised and this is the one that works for me.

Set the timer on your phone and do ONE thing only for just twenty minutes.

Clean the kitchen, fold clothes, read/return emails, write, garden, clean the shower, tidy a room, clear out a drawer, change things around,  make phone calls

It keeps me calm,  it keeps me focused, it stops me doing 65000 unnecessary laps of this house in one day,  it’s how I get things done.

I don’t do it  all day, all the time – usually 4 to 5 x 20 minutes stints a day, mostly in the morning, is enough to keep the house civilised and functioning the way I like it and keeps me making progress with the creative things I love to do.

The First Twenty Minutes

The photos below show the first time I discovered the power of doing one thing full on for twenty minutes.

This is the side of the house where no one ever goes and where I shove things I don’t want to look at.

Mostly it gets forgotten about but there was no ignoring this sad state of affairs any longer – even the dogs didn’t want to go around there.

It was so bad I took a photo and had a joke with Ken that if I wasn’t out in twenty minutes, to come in after me.

 I set the timer  because I really didn’t want to do it and decided that 20 minutes was all I was up for and then it was Ken’s turn.

BEFORE

AFTER TWENTY MINUTES

It only needed 20 minutes. 

I was totally amazed at what got done.

 So the idea kind of took off.

One Thing Only

There’s a bit of a trick to it.

If I’m giving 20 minutes to the kitchen it usually means I’m just getting it back to civilised. Cleaning off the counters, clearing the sink, packing the dishwasher and sweeping the floor.

In this time I won’t be cleaning out the fridge or cleaning the stove or reorganising the pantry or making a shopping list.

Those need their own twenty minutes.

Apply that to any room.

It works really well when you need to have a quick tidy up in one room or around the house and it works really well for individual tasks that kept being put on the back burner.

Often we think we’ll need an hour at least to get a task done – the fridge, the stove top, a desk top – so we put off doing it because we don’t have that spare hour. But I have found that nine times out of ten you can get it over the line in 20. I’d rather get something done the best I can in 20 minutes than never getting it done waiting for that elusive hour to show up.

And after 20 minutes  if you have the time and really want to do a bit more – then  set the timer again and do another twenty. I always  stop at that because who wants to be cleaning and/or organising for more than forty minutes straight anyway.

The  whole idea is balance – you get something done and move on.

Think one thing.  Give it 20 minutes

Give it a try if you struggle with staying focused and on task or get side lined easy  but then hate the mess your left in afterwards.

In 20 minutes.

• You get soooo much more done than you think you will
• It lasts longer than you think it will – I often check the timer because I’m sure the 20 minutes must be up  and usually find I still have  2 or 3 minutes to go.
•  20 minutes can be squeezed in just about anywhere at any time.
• You work faster and more focused than you would without the timer, so you get more done.
• It gives you a reachable end point to your task –  when you get to stop, look back at what you’ve accomplished and enjoy the result.
• Getting one thing done in 20 minutes is so much more satisfying  than getting 10 things half done in two hours.
• Big jobs (that often get put off indefinitely because they seem undoable and overwhelming) get broken down into small manageable bite size pieces. 

 

Tackling Big Projects

Twenty minutes a great way to make a big project more manageable and doable.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks and then starting on the first. Mark Twain

Two things often happen when it comes to big jobs around the house – you either avoid getting started because you know it’s gonna take a great big chunk out of your day/week that your not sure you can spare OR you launch in, pull everything out or apart  and two hours later your totally overwhelmed, sobbing into your  tea or something stronger and it takes the best  part of  the next week to get it all back together again

For bigger cleaning jobs like the garage or a full room overhaul or even things like cleaning out the pantry or a linen cupboard  –  I would rather do 20 minutes each day for a week – say one shelf or one small area a day – rather than pull everything out, all over the place in one go and then having the unwieldy task of putting it all back together. I’ve been there and its lobbing in a hand grenade and then having to deal with the fall out. No thanks

For me small steps taken often get you so much further and with less collateral damage then huge dramatic leaps and bounds that often leave you stranded or overwhelmed

Creative/decorating projects can get the same treatment. Lets take  for example, the gallery wall you’ve been meaning to get to for a couple of years. 20 minutes a day, one or two pictures hung each time and within a week or two you have the wall of memories and inspiration you have been wanting.

Pictures speak louder than words

The garden is a great example of how you can chip away at a big job in small doses. They can get away on us so but its not something I ever seem to have a whole day to devote to on a regular basis. What I do have though is 20 minutes here and there and I’m always surprised at what can get done in that time. 

A whiles ago I did 20 minutes a day for 12 days on my side yard.

Worked wonders

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twenty minutes a day.

Not deep, not complicated but it works.

So set your timer and see what good things you get done.