10 Household Tasks to Do in 10 Minutes or Less Each

Maybe it’s because I’m a procrastinator or maybe it’s my domestically challenged side, but I have a tendency of wasting time on unimportant things like jumping onto Facebook for ten minutes (or more!) instead of just doing a quick homemaking task around the house.  I often think that household tasks will take longer than they actually do.

If you’re like me, then take a look at this list to find some tasks that you can quickly do in ten minutes or less.  Then, the next time you have a little time to kill, tackle one of the tasks on this list.

10 Quick Household Tasks to Do in Less than 10 Minutes Each

1. Do a quick tidying up in one room.  Ten minutes may not be enough for a deep clean, but ten minutes of dedicated work can make an astounding difference in how a room looks.

2. Go through paperwork or mail that you have sitting out.  Sort it into piles to deal with later or throw away.  Of course, if you don’t have a lot of this kind of thing sitting around, ten minutes might even give you enough time to take care of any tasks in the pile as well.

3. Wipe down all surfaces in your kitchen.

4. Grab out your vacuum and hit as many rooms as you can.  If you have a small house, ten minutes might be enough for everywhere.  If you have a large house, maybe you can just do one floor of your house.

5. Do some menu planning.  This can be especially great if you’ve been struggling with meal planning and you’ve been putting it off.  Sit down and commit to doing it for just ten minutes.  No pressure to plan a whole month or even a whole week at a time.  Just put in a good, full ten minutes of planning.  (Having a master grocery list might help!)

6. Load or unload your dishwasher.

7.  Dust one room of your house.  (A moment of disclosure: I almost always have my kids do the dusting in my house.  It’s one of my least favorite housekeeping tasks.)

8.  Clean all door knobs, light switches, toilet handles, and other commonly touched surfaces in your house.  This is especially important if people have recently been sick at your house.

9. Go through your refrigerator, freezer, or pantry and get rid of items that are no longer good.  Make a note of foods that should be used soon.

10. Throw a load of laundry in the washing machine and/or fold a load of laundry that has just finished in the dryer.  (Here are 10 tips for keeping up with your laundry.)

What are some other quick household tasks that you can get done in ten minutes or less?

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Originally published on August 12, 2014. Most recently updated on August 8, 2016.