Have you ever felt the feeling of stepping on a lego? Not good, it’s not good, it hurts! I actually saw a meme about it the other day, it was kind of funny!

That’s life with kids, that’s life with other people. There are things out of place, there are things out of order. There’s stuff on the floor, there’s stuff everywhere. Mess happens, that’s a part of life it’s something that we all deal with. There are ways to overcome it, ways that I found to make it not so big and scary to have to clean up the mess because sometimes it can get overwhelming, especially when you live with people.

When my kids were little we came up with a technique that we use called the five minute pickup. We would go and set a timer for five minutes to pick up. When my kids were little and home all the time it was five minutes per room now that they’re older and not home so much and not making such a big mess it’s just five minutes. We turn on the timer for five minutes and everybody picks up. Pick up after yourself, pick up after someone else, it doesn’t matter as long as you’re picking up! My rule was that if all the kids were doing it and actively helping then I would help too and if they weren’t then I wasn’t helping. We just see how much we can get done in five minutes. It’s pretty simple, pretty easy, not hard, we can clean up a lot in five minutes!

My daughter and I just got hooked on watching this guy who records himself doing car detailing. You seriously would not believe what these cars look like! They could be such disasters and he just makes a video of himself cleaning. It’s seriously so therapeutic and feels amazing to watch the transformation happen. 

What would it be like in your life if you could just implement five minutes of everybody getting on board to get that synergy going? Maybe you could even turn on some good music as you clean up. It feels so much better when you have a fresh slate and you’re not stepping on legos. I encourage you to give it a try!