Recently I’ve been really enjoying catching up on the excellent videos and resources produced by Steph, the “Secret Slob”

She’s taken the Flylady system, simplified, customised and run with it in a really delightful and encouraging way. Steph has produced a wealth of concise and encouraging videos on her YouTube channel and lovely printables to keep track of your tasks.

One of her tweaks to the Flylady system is her creation of a “5×5” speed-cleaning session. She users her timer to keep on task and zips around cleaning five rooms for five minutes each. If she has extra time at the end of a room, she pops back to the “worst room” to do a little more there.

I decided to give this technique a try this afternoon to help get ready for the weekend. I made a quick list in a new routine with the areas that needed attention, set my timer for five minutes and got on with it!

I’m very distractible but these five minute chunks were easy to keep focused for, and it made a really big difference. It was fun to zoom around and it really did lift the ambient tidiness level in such a short amount of time!

(To illustrate the difference it made: my 11-year-old just came in from the school bus and asked if someone was coming over 😅)

I will definitely be using this idea again!