The 10 Minute Challenge

I had a brainstorm this morning while making me daily To-Do list.  There are always these little odd jobs that I want accomplished, but I never seem to make the time to get to them.  So, I had the bright idea to make a list of these tasks, and then enlist my wonderful children to help me.

Each morning during our Bible study time, I always go over the Plan For the Day with my children.  I remind them of the day and date and whatever we have planned for that day…piano lessons, xc practice, errands, etc.  I also tell them our cleaning plan for the day (we don't clean house every day) and any other extra thing I need them to do that day.  This morning I announced that I had a really great idea to help Mama out!  One of my children said, "Great!  Like cleaning baseboards!" :)

I explained to them my idea of setting the timer for 10 minutes and doing one of the items on my list.  The 10 Minute Challenge!  Today we cleaned out our shoe baskets.  Those are baskets of shoes beside two of our doors that lead outside.  I have trained my family to put their shoes in that basket as they take them off, but periodically the shoe baskets get too full!  I like for them to have no more than two pairs of shoes in each basket at any given time, and I do not like for them to put their church shoes in there.

It took us less than 10 minutes and we were done.  Shoe baskets cleaned out and the extra shoes all put away in each person's closet.

Other items on my 10 Minute Challenge include:

• various drawers throughout the house
• the kitchen computer desk (where the children do all of the school and leisure computer work)
• our magazine bucket 
• a different magazine/Bible class material basket 
• the kids' upstairs built in desks

I know that I will think of many more tasks to add to this list, but the drawers alone may take us a month!  I hope to have the 10 Minute Challenge 3 times a week.