Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Fifteen minutes really is all it takes

I always hear people talk about how just 15 minutes a day of __________ can make a difference. In my world, it's usually 15 minutes of cleaning.

So last night I set the timer for 15 minutes and got to work on my kitchen. The kitchen was about the worst it's ever been. There was no counter space anywhere, the stove was caked in grime from baking and cooking, there were no clean bowls to be found in the house (and glasses were sparse as well).

In 15 minutes (actually, 20, since I went to work for 5 minutes before I remembered to start the timer) I was able to load and run the dishwasher, scrub (and I do mean scrub) the stove clean, get everything on the counters put away, corral the leftover dirty dishes to one corner by the sink, and wipe down about 1/2 of the counter surface. Wow! 20 minutes did that?? In the next 20 minutes I finished wiping down the counterspace and started handwashing those leftover dishes.

It was nice to get up this morning to a mostly clean kitchen. I need to unload the dishwasher and put away the handwashed dishes and then reload the dishes with the remaining leftovers, but all in all the kitchen is looking good and I am proud of myself for finally getting to it.

Who'd have guessed that the huge mess - the one that tooks days to create - really could be mostly cleaned up in 15 minutes?!

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