The 5-Minute Tidy-Up: Because Your House Will Never Be Perfect (And That's Fine)
Let me tell you something. Your house is a mess. Mine is too. Right now there's a guinea pig cage that needs cleaning, a three-year-old's artistic masterpiece stuck to my kitchen wall with what I hope is jam, and I'm pretty sure there's a sock under the sofa that's been there since Christmas.
But here's the thing. I've stopped caring about perfect. Perfect is exhausting. Perfect is for people who don't have four kids, two jobs, and a dog who thinks the living room carpet is his personal toilet.
What I do care about is manageable. And manageable means five-minute bursts of tidying that stop me from drowning in the chaos.
Why Five Minutes Works When Everything Else Doesn't
Five minutes is magic. It's not long enough for your kids to disappear and draw on the walls. It's not long enough for you to get overwhelmed and give up. It's just long enough to make a difference without wanting to fake your own death.
Most parenting advice tells you to deep clean on weekends. Bollocks to that. Weekends are for surviving, not scrubbing. Five minutes every day beats a three-hour cleaning marathon that leaves you hating your life.
Your brain can handle five minutes. Your schedule can handle five minutes. Even your most reluctant teenager can handle five minutes away from their phones, with appropriate bribery of course.
The Morning Reset: Start Your Day Without Wanting to Cry
There is nothing worse than having to hit the ground running in the morning. I work nights, ok only typing in my garden office, but still I’m in there until 03:00-03:30 everry day. Getting up at 07:30 for school run chaos isn’t fun, but I have learned through painful repetition that its better to knuckle down in those first moments, because coming home to it after the drop offs is just compltely shit. So, before you leave the house, set a timer for five minutes and tackle these basics:
Make the beds:Yes, even the kids' beds. No, they don't need to look like hotel beds. Lumpy is fine. Crooked is fine. The duvet hanging off one side is character.
Clear the breakfast table: Those empty cereal bowls aren't going to wash themselves. Wipe the sticky jam off the surface while you're at it.
Quick bathroom check: Hang up the towels that are inevitably on the floor. Put the toothbrushes back where they belong instead of scattered around the sink like tiny weapons.
Check the laundry basket: If the basket is full chuck it in the machine. Don't sort it. Life's too short.
These tasks are the mundane staples of adulthood, made worse through parenthood, but don’t let them overwhelm you. Remember, none of this is about perfection. It's about doing your best, and trust us, getting these things done first thing, means you don’t coming home from the school run to a mountain of tasks that make you want to turn around and leave again.
We all do it. We get back home, it’s quiet, and we shut off the engine and just sit there. We lie and say its because we want to hear the end of the song. Then it’s just to gather our thoughts. Really, it’s because we are not emotionally ready for the drudgery of housework. It’s not even 9am, you need a coffee, you want someting to eat that wasn’t pre-chewed or moistened by the third party. Getting these basic parenting must-dos out of the way while the kids are scrambling to find their shoes and pack their bags, means you can come home, grab that cup of coffee and enjoy the peace and quiet for a few moments. Creating a few routing moments of serenity which will set you up for the day and whatever lies ahead.
The After-School Chaos Control
This is when everything goes to hell. Kids dump bags. Shoes fly everywhere. Someone's always hungry and someone else is crying about homework. But before you pour that glass of wine (or coffee, no judgment), spend another five minutes running the damage control protocol:
Bags and shoes go where they belong: Not sort of near where they belong. Actually where they belong. This is a hill worth dying on.
Quick declutter of the living room: Gather up the random toys, empty cups, and mysterious sticky things that appear from nowhere.
Wipe down the dining table and kitchen counters: You'll be making dinner soon and you don't want to cook on yesterday's crumbs.
Tidy as you prep dinner: This is one of those things reserved for the adventurous few, and while its a great tip, half the time you’re gonna say, fuck it. Rinse things. Put things away. Your future self will thank you.
Get yourself a living room basket: Keep a basket in the living room for random stuff. Empty it daily or it becomes a black hole of lost things.
If your kids are of a certain age, this is a great chance for them to start doing things too. Not everything in the house is your responsibility, and the five minute damage control protocol is a great chance to give your kids a few simple jobs - particularly the ones you really don’t want to do. They might be tired after a busy day at school,. but so are you, and this is another one of those moments that helps develop the intestinal fortitude that is needed to make the transition from kid to functioning adult. The five minute timebox is also appealing to kids because they don’t feel like they are losting must time. For us oldies, that’s not even as long as the advert breaks between after-school cartoons..
The Evening Wind-Down: So You Don't Wake Up to Hell
Nothing ruins a morning like walking into yesterday's disaster. But, by spending another magical five minutes before scurring up to bed before the little people come and starfish beside you, is enough to save what’s left of your sanity:
Deal with the dishes: Load the dishwasher. Run it if it's full. Or just wash the worst offenders in the sink. Don't let them breed overnight. We know it’s easy to ignore them, but trust us on this one.
Wipe the kitchen counters and sink: It takes thirty seconds and makes everything look less grim and there’s this wonderful peace of mind that comes from knowing the counters have been cleaned.
Floor check (in the main areas): Pick up the big stuff. Leave the crumbs for the dog … if you have one, or if you’re worrid about wildlife, a quick sweep - because god forbid the vacuum wakes the sleeping cherubs - takes no time at all.
Living room reset. Fold the blankets that are inevitably scattered everywhere. Put the remote controls somewhere findable, but probably out of reach at the same time. .
Even though it only taks a few minutes to do al of this, why not chuck on your headphones and hit play on a some music or a podcast. It makes the whole thing less soul-destroying. Let’s face it, by this time of night, your soul is hanging on for what it’s worth anyway, so few favourite tunes might be what it needs to convince it to hang around for another day.
Getting Everyone Else to Help (Without Becoming a Nag)
We’ve touched on it already, but the simple truth of running a home is that you're not the household cleaning fairy. As much as we like to think we sparkle every step we take, the simple fact remains that we’re human, we have limits, out sweat stinks and no, that isn’t a healthy rosy glow, its a red-faced sticky mess that makes it look like you’ve stayed in the sauna too long. It is the responsibility of everybody who lives in the house to pitch in. Even the three-year-old can put toys in a basket, wel,. near a basket, and take them out again, and put them back, then give up half way through to then do it under duress and the threat of no dessert with the help of their older sisters … and invarable dad.
Set a timer and make it a race: Kids love beating the clock or making sometinmg a competition. "Let's see if we can tidy the living room before this song ends." In our house we use Time to Tidy Up by Dave Moran. It’s perfect, but catchy … so bloody catchy you will be whistling it to yourself at 2 am while your getting a glass of water and doing sleep math to see how long you will get if you went to bed right now!
Make it a game: Simon says is the perfect way to get kids used to helping tidy. Among Simon telling litle ones to touch their nose, or stand on one leg, perhaps he could ask them to put their blocks back in the box, or stack to the books up neatly. It’s a technique we use a lot and most of the time, it works without any complaining.
Give age-appropriate jobs: Toddlers can match socks (badly). Teenagers can load dishwashers (with minimal supervision and maximum eye-rolling).
Make it routine: There is no point in making everything a negoitation. Saying "This is what we do after dinner" works and sounds better than "Could you please maybe help me because I'm drowning here." Kids are sociopaths. They don’t care if your drowning.
Praise effort, not perfection: Praise is a great motivator, at any age, but certainl;y for the younger ones just starting to help out. It costs nothing to say "Thanks for helping" and it sounds so much better than "You missed a spot." Also, you need to accept that with little ones, less so the morose teens, the attempt is probably as good as your going to get. But the combined effect of consistent attempts and positivity help build healthy habits in the future.
Don't turn into your mother: Nobody wants to live with someone who treats every mess like a personal insult.
While parenting often feels like it, you are not in this alone, and when everybody pitches in you will be amazed at what can get done even when sticking to the magical 5-minute limit.
When Five Minutes Isn't Enough
I’m sorry to break it to you, and I apologize if I’ve somehow made you think 5 minutes is all you will ever need. It isn’t. Sometimes life explodes. Let’s be honest, sometimes babies explode and it takes more than five minutes to clean them up from leg-creases to shoulders. Or the dog vomits ont he carpet, Someone's had a birthday party and the guests have left it looking the fields the morning after Glastonbury and a guinea pig has escaped and is somewhere in the garden - hopefully not eating the fuscia you finally managed not to kill.
When this happens, don't panic. Take a step back, strategize and move forward, focusing on the key areas that matter most. This means kitchen and living room first. Everywhere else can wait. Power through small sections. Heck the pomodorro method works for writing, it could work for housework too. But that feels like a post for another time.
Even when the kids haven’t emptied the cereal and coloring bed box all over the kitchen foor, there are certain jobs that need a bit more time to get done property.
Ty setting yourslf a fifteen-minute power session once a week, or once a day if you live in my house. Fifteen minutes is all it takes. Crack up the tunes, and atack the worst bits first. Remember, you don’t live in a show home, and in all frankness, you don’t want to. Focus on the worst parts of the most important areas and work your way back through the list. You don’t need to do it all, and there is no point. Everything has a time and a place, and once you learn this, everything becomes less daunting.
The Truth About Living With Mess
As a parent, tour house will never be magazine-perfect. It simplyh isn’t possible. At least not without neglecting your kids both emotionally and physically. A house with kids shouldn’t be pristing, because if it is, those is are not doing it right. When you factor in pets, friends and the general chaos of family life, you’re fighting a loosing battle with zero chance of a happy ending. It's not worth losing your mind over bit of mess.
Now, don’t get me wrong. There is a HUGE difference between a messy home with happy kids and a home that is dirty and uncared for. The first is what we are. Kids play with toys, they run around and make a mess. But its easy to solve just by following the five-minute steps above. The goal isn't a spotless home. It's a home that functions. A home where kids are happy and feel comfortable and loved. It’s a home where parents stop and go sit together outside for a few minutes and chat over a cup of coffee while the kids eat their dinner at the table. It’s about embracing the moment and no trying to completely hide the fact it ever happend.
The goal is a house where you can (generally) find things when you need them. Where you're not completely mortified if someone drops by unexpectedly.
These five-minute routines aren't about becoming a domestic goddess. They're about spending less time cleaning and more time living. Because that's what houses are for.
Your kids won't remember whether the floors were always spotless. They'll remember whether you had time to play with them. So tidy for five minutes, then put your feet up and play with your kids.
You’ve all earned it.
