'I tried the five-minute cleaning hack and it's changed the mess in my house'

I feel like a lot of other parents can agree that there seems to be a never ending to do list of chores. 

From putting on a load of washing to folding it, cleaning up after breakfast, packing the toys away when the kids go to school or even just dealing with those piles of clutter that build up, there's always something to do and it can feel overwhelming on where to start. 

Well, I came across a hack that's changed how I clean the house and it's actually made a huge difference. 

It's basically a five minute rule. 

If the task will take you less than five minutes to do, then just do it now. 

I know, groundbreaking stuff, but when you look at these little tasks as only a couple of minutes individually, rather than putting them off to do one big clean you can constantly stay on top of things. 

It's also made me realise how quickly a lot of things can get done, meaning the overall pressure to get a big list done is a lot less. 

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We recently got back from an overseas holiday and I am very guilty of just living out of the suitcase until it's empty – and I know I'm not alone in this. 

But with everything in packing cubes I put this new method to the test and within minutes the suitcase was empty.

We had ski bags too, which were just as quick to unpack and then chuck them all back in the garage. 

It took probably 10 minutes just to empty everything out but having the space of the bags gone created an instant calm. Then it made the idea of actually unpacking everything else far less overwhelming and time consuming because the biggest part was actually done. 

I've started to look at a lot of household tasks this way too, instead of just pulling all the washing off the line and throwing it in a basket (and leaving it for days), folding everything up only takes a couple of minutes while taking it off the line and saves having to do it again later. 

The same thing goes with putting items away every night in the kitchen after doing the dishes. 

Or coming home and kicking my shoes into the pile that's grown near the door and instead of thinking that's too hard, grabbing them all and just putting them away properly. 

It's basically tricking yourself into not procrastinating, which is how I look at it, but you can also use this five minute method another way. 

Break your cleaning up into five-minute increments. 

Anna Louisa wrote about this method in her book, The 5 Minute Clean Routine: Tips and Tricks for a Happy Home and all you need to do is start a timer for just give minutes, pick one zone and start. 

"After becoming a mum, I didn't have big blocks of time anymore," she told Women's Health.

"And honestly, my anxiety couldn't cope with never-ending to-do lists. But five minutes felt possible. And those little wins added up. They helped me feel like I'd achieved something, even on days where everything else felt hard. It gave me a sense of control and calm, which really helped my headspace." 

The idea is a great one because there's no pressure to actually finish cleaning an entire room, rather just start and do what you can in that window. 

"The magic is in building the habit, not smashing your way through everything at once. Once you see how much you can do in five minutes, it gets easier to keep going," she explained. 

In an effort to prove to myself how much you can actually do in this short window of time, I've now got a list of "five-minute jobs" in my notes app on my phone to smash through when I feel like I've got time and it's really made a huge difference for me.

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