Episode 427 – 10 five minute decluttering tasks for when you have no time

Ingrid: Today we're sharing 10 five-minute decluttering tasks you can dip into whenever you got a spare few minutes. But we've done something a bit different with this one. We've put these 10 tasks in an order that follows a natural path around your house. So if you've actually got an hour spare, you can do all 10 back-to-back and feel like you've properly reset your space. We'll explain how that flow works as we go.

Ingrid: Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid.

Lesley: And I am Lesley. Now, if you are here for the very first time today, or you've been listening in for ages, we want to say a huge thank you we have a little favour to ask.

Ingrid: If you like what you hear, be sure to hit that follow or subscribe button. Share us with your friends or leave us a review. It makes a huge difference to us.

Lesley, it's a 10 Things podcast with a twist today

Lesley: I know. Check us out, putting a little twist into our 10 Things podcast. I'm sort of quite excited, but I am also waiting for the barrage of attack, which is like, "Are you actually kidding that you can do that in five minutes?" So, there is that element to it. So we think with a fair wind and a bit of speed, you can get these things done in five minutes, but maybe not.

But they're quick. They're quick. Let's just say they're quick. Maybe not five minutes, maybe some might extend a little bit be- beyond five minutes. But what we wanted to do was to show that really five-minute tasks, when you do them back to back, really start to add up, can allow you really to reset your space.

And so we thought about, right, how could we do our 10 that we came up with? Our 10 things, ideas first, as we always do, and then we were like, we could put these together, and if somebody was feeling excited and energized and motivated, they could do them all in one day. So this could be your weekend task.

So let's get cracking, Ingrid, with our number one, which was a brilliant one that you came up with right at the start

Ingrid: thank you very much. so yeah, did, bra- let's do one step back. We did brainstorm for, ages, "Okay, what can we put into this list," right? Because knowing what we know decluttering and things like that are never quick fixes, so we really had to think it through. And yes, indeed, I came up with number one, and that is, you know what?

You need to start at the beginning, and you need to make sure that you clear your donation station. So Lesley, why don't we put your donation station, bag things up that you've already before decided can leave the house. Let's bag those up and put them in the boot of your car, so next time when you go out to the shops, you can drive past the charity shop and donate these items.

Or maybe even if you're lucky, you are listening to this podcast Saturday morning, and you're like, "Yes, I'm gonna do the 10 things, and this afternoon I'm gonna follow through and drive immediately to the donation station or to the donation shop." But having a clear donation station is, of course, the beginning of, "Hey, I now have space to put things that I've also been thinking about decluttering again in my donation station."

So what a brilliant number one if I say so myself.

Lesley: I think it's amazing. Honestly, Ingrid, you're an absolute superstar. Anyone would think that you've been doing this for years. But anyway, do we just want a little step back just in case we've got any brand-new listeners to us who are like, "What is a donation station? What even is...?" So a dona- a donation station is a kind of designated spot in your house where when you're going about your daily business and you find things that need to be decluttered, you put them all there so you don't have to keep going to the charity shop every day.

You've got a sort of designated spot where you can gather them all together until it's an appropriate time. Now, I have to say, Ingrid, my donation station at this moment in time is a little bit overflowy, so I feel like I could do my donation station. Mine's up in my laundry room, and it is kind of... As it started to topple over yesterday, I was like, "Yeah, I think it's time."

That's a good thing. That means lots of clutter's gone out, but it means that I've not gone to the charity shop yet. So that is something that I definitely am going to put... I, I think I'm gonna do a lot of these this weekend myself, actually. I liked the list so much that I'm gonna take action on it. So what we thought, so we talked that we, we talked about the fact that we are gonna give you a little bit of a flow.

So let's imagine the scene. You have gone to wherever your donation station is. You've got your bin bags, you've put them in. You've put your stuff into your, into your bin bags. You've taken it out to the boot of your car. What's next, Ingrid?

Ingrid: So what we thought, you are with your car keys next to your car and you're opening the car to put the stuff in the trunk or the boot for the donation, for the donat- for the donation, you might as well also have a tiny little look at your, kind of your middle console, The place where all the little bits and bobs go, like the little wrappers and the little coins and the, maybe a, an half-empty bottle of water that's been in your car for three weeks.

It That middle bit next to where you're sitting, where either you're a passenger or a driver, that needs to be tidied up, right? Because it's not that big in most cars, but it does collect a lot of stuff. So while you're at the car, you might as well go, "Okay, this is a perfect opportunity for me to look at that little middle console," and just do a little bit of five minutes of just tidying up and getting some rubbish out, and just m- clearing it out a little bit again, and decluttering some of these random bits that start to live, and maybe something that's dropped on the floor next to your middle console. You think, "Oh, yeah, maybe now's the good time to get that, skin from the grou- floor of my car before it gets even worse."

Lesley: I know, exactly. And I think, you know, we purposely said just do the central console of your car. Beware going, "I'm gonna do my whole car." Although if you do your whole car, it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is gonna take you off track for the other eight things on our list, right? So you've just got to, you've got to look at that.

So some of these things will definitely mean that you want to do more, which is not necessarily a bad things, but sometimes you have to have something in your mind and stick to the plan. This is about planning. So you can do whatever you like, but if you're gonna stick to our plan, don't do your whole car, 'cause that definitely takes longer than five minutes in most instances.

So central console in your car, sort all those little bits and pieces, chuck a few things away, rearrange a few things, take some stuff back into your house, and that is when we get ready for our number three. also another of Ingrid's revolutionary picks for today

Ingrid: I know, because of course we always try to surprise and delight you here in our

Lesley: Oh,

Ingrid: at least

Lesley: a surprise and delight.

Ingrid: that's what we aim for, right? And Lesley said, "We need to have something that you, wouldn't think of immediately." And I said, how about..." And, then it, for some reason I thought about the weather, as you do, because I'm Dutch and I think about the weather all And I thought, "Oh, it's kind of autumn now. It's October. It's getting cold. People need umbrellas." And I thought, "Yeah, there's often a rogue umbrella in your car, or maybe when you come in from the car back into your house, in your little hallway, there's probably a little group of umbrellas lurking in a corner or at the bottom of some box or something." And I thought, "Oh, that's a great opportunity to just look at a couple of umbrellas. Do they still open and close properly?" Because there's nothing so annoying as an umbrella that doesn't collapse properly, and then when it's actually raining you're like, and you're like, "Oh. Oh yeah, that umbrella little arm broke and now half

Lesley: Yeah.

Ingrid: face is dry and the other half of my face is getting wet." Not ideal. So yeah, suddenly car, weather, umbrellas. Are you still following me?

Lesley: I'm definitely following you. And interestingly, I did that myself this weekend 'cause I had a broken umbrella. I didn't go through all my umbrellas, but I got one open and it was like, there's nothing funnier really, is there, than a broken umbrella? Like, umbrellas are quite a funny thing, aren't they? You

know,

fact that they go inside out, that they break.

You've got people walking along the drobe with like a limp sort of side of an umbrella, people battling against the wind. Like, it's comedy, like, there for the taking, isn't it, umbrellas? So we need to make sure that we are not subjects of comedy debates, which people are. You know, Jen, that would be the kind of thing that would make me laugh.

And so yeah, I think it's time to look at your umbrellas. We need to think about superstition as well. So a lot of people are superstitious about putting umbrellas up inside, so this might be something that you need to pop to the back door or the front door and open your umbrellas outside to make sure they're working.

So, and while you're at it, I think it's really good to have a designated spot for umbrellas, right? And so it might be an umbrella stand by the front door. I've got mine in my kind of utility room at the back, and I've got them all together so everybody knows if they want an umbrella, they can go and pick them.

You know, not everybody's got their own umbrellas. We've got like a, a few umbrellas that anybody can take if they want to, you know, because you've got little ones that can fit into bags. You've got bigger ones. You've got golf ones. You've got... You know, there's all different types of umbrellas, so you really need to think about that.

so yeah, number three, we are back in the house and we are sorting out our, our umbrellas so we're not a laughing stock when we go outside. Very, very important. And so we are gonna go, and we are gonna throw potentially, and it will be a throw away, this one, it won't be a donate or anything like that if they're broken.

And that would really be the only reason why you would throw umbrellas away, right? Because you need a constant throughput of them. We're gonna go into the kitchen potentially to throw our umbrella in the bin if we don't want it. So while we're there, Ingrid, we're gonna do our number four. Now this is where

Ingrid: Yes.

Lesley: five minutes might be a bit of a stretch, but we think that we can do it

Ingrid: Yes, definitely. So in the kitchen, open your fridge and go, "Can I just clear out one little shelf in my fridge?" That doesn't have to mean the vegetable drawer with, like everything that's been in there for three weeks, right? You can just go, "Actually, door, I've got a door with a couple of little, yeah, trays or what are they called?

holders

Lesley: Yeah, like

Ingrid: fridge

Lesley: they're like shel- I think, I think they're actually called shelves, but they, like, hook on, don't they? So

Ingrid: Yeah,

Lesley: would still be called a shelf, but, but it's like a door shelf

Ingrid: Yes. So can you just have a look through and go, "Okay, I'm gonna have a look at my door. Let me do the shelf where the milk normally lives. this milk still in date? Yes, no. Yes, it stays. No, it's like, okay, I don't wanna do out of date milk. is that soda, for example, that's in that same shelf, has that been in there for months, and has it gone completely without fizz, and do I just need to let it go? Can I check a few dates?" Just a couple of things, so not a whole fridge project, because that might... You might think, "You know what? I'm gonna do this one shelf, but actually this now reminds me, I do need to do my vegetable drawer. I do need to do the f- the shelf with all the sauces, because I don't know how long..." That's another project that can go on the list, like maybe later that day or that weekend or that week. Yeah, shelf, sh- kitchen, fridge project. I'm gonna schedule an hour to really empty it all, take the shelves out, wash them, wipe it, da But no, now we're just doing a five-minute, let's scan this.

Can I lose some stuff? Ooh, tiny bit of, Quickly getting a cloth out and just wiping it. Done. Five minutes in your kitchen

Lesley: Don't you think, don't you think that milk is like a weird thing on shelves? 'Cause y- you know, like, I don't, h- I, it's just there's always like a residue on the bottom, isn't there? Like a sort of crusty sort

of...

Like, when you put your... But where does that come from? Like, what, so... Do, do you know what I mean?

Like, the, the shelf I put mine on, like my bottom shelf, you put it in, I've got those kind of, is it two liters, like the four-pint, yeah,

right, thingy, goes into the thing, and there's always like a sort of dirty... It's never clean, is it? Do you think it just rolls down the side of the bottle?

Ingrid: Yes, I do. And I think knowing you a little bit, Lesley, you can be a little bit haphazard with things like this. So

Lesley: Stop it

Ingrid: see you fling it. Yeah, but I can s- I think this is true. I think I, I can see you just gonna pour the milk in your tea and then you do- you're just gonna go fling it in, thingy, and you don't see that one kind of milk thing walk past you, and you just fling it back in your...

I ne- I would never

Lesley: But who wipes a milk carton down before they put it... Would you wipe a milk carton down before you put it back in your fridge? Who does that?

Ingrid: I don't, even have milk running past my thing because I think I ca- I, pour my milk a little bit more careful than you. let's be honest. You're a bit like, you're, because

you're, like, thinking

Lesley: many times, have you been watching me pouring milk into a cup of tea that you've made a judgment and an assessment that I'm haphazard with my milk pouring? Honestly, it's rude, Ingrid. You-

Ingrid: times have you... how many times have you knocked over a glass of water on your desk while we are working on something? That's what I mean. I think you're just, are like that.

Lesley: Fair enough. Ingrid is biting back. For anybody who thinks that I'm the one that go- has a go at Ingrid all the time, she's biting back with like... She's, having a go at me for being haphazard. I can't disagree. But anyway, so keep the shelf keep, keep it to one shelf only, because if you make this into an entire fridge project, then this is not five minutes, this is at least an hour to do.

So one shelf at a time, and if you wanna do it again next week, you can do another shelf, and another shelf, and build it up like that. If this is something that you dread doing your shelf, you can break it down. That's absolutely fine. So yeah, the, the best one is gonna be the, probably the one with the milk or the one potentially with the sauces or something like that.

Those are kind of nice, easy ones to do. And obviously, you can gather up and wipe up all your potential milk spills if you are Lesley Spellman. If you are Ingrid Jansen, there's not a spill in sight

Ingrid: While you're in the k- moving on swiftly, while you're in the kitchen, this is might also be a good thing to go, "You know what? just gonna do one drawer in my kitchen, or one little shelf in my kitchen." And we were thinking, what would be something that you could possibly do in five minutes? And we thought, okay, maybe you can do the drawer where your foils and your cling film and your baking pa- paper live, or maybe your little freezer bags or something, if you use them, or your compost bags. If they all live in one drawer, that would be a great drawer to just pull open, pull it out, five minutes. Is everything still... And m- maybe you might think, "Ooh, I'm actually nearly running out of kitchen foil. I need to put that on the shopping list." Or note, do not buy kitchen foil because apparently I have three and I'd only need one. So it helps you to see what you have and use what you have. and now you also thought about a good one, Lesley, because that was doing the tea towels, right? Also could be a good drawer

Lesley: Yeah, I think it's about, it's about assessing what drawer. This is not the time to do your cutlery drawer, your utensils drawer, your junk drawer, your pan drawer. We're talking about easy wins here, five-minute wins. And so definitely I think the other one, it depends on how y- your kitchen's configured, but often people do have dishcloths and tea towels and that kind of thing in a drawer.

So if you've got a little drawer assigned to those things on their own, then that might be one to go. But I think the foils, I think the foils and clingfilm and, you know, silicon sheets, that kind of thing, whatever you've got in there, I think that's a really good one to go at. 'Cause the other thing is it doesn't often get that dirty as well, and so it's not gonna involve tons and tons of cleaning.

Same with tea towels and dishcloths as well. So, yeah. So we're firmly in the kitchen. We're doing amazing work. It's time to carry on with our five minutes that's building up to an hour, but we need to come back after the break, Ingrid, don't we, and carry on with our part two?

Ingrid: Definitely, Lesley. But before we go, do we need to do a little tally? Because I'm like, ooh,

Lesley: Oh

Ingrid: I need to... I- there's a couple of things I think I definitely need to... Like you, I need to clear my donation station. That's

one on the list. Okay for the console. okay for umbrellas. I need to do a little bit of work on my fridge because, yeah, I think that's what I need to do.

So I can do the f- I'm, gonna take two. I'm gonna take two of the

Lesley: So you're gonna do... So when you say you're gonna take two, you mean you're gonna do two?

Ingrid: Yes, I'm

Lesley: You're gonna d- you're gonna commit to two

Ingrid: Yeah, donation station, shelf, and the fridge. That's what I'm

Lesley: Then I'm gonna do the same. So my donation st-

Ingrid: Okay

Lesley: station is overflowing. I did my umbrella last week, so I don't think there's any more dodgy ones in there. But clearly I need to tackle that milk fridge and get rid of all the horrible slop from... that's been in there for the last, six months from my terrible haphazard nature.

But yeah, so I'll take those two. I'll take those two as well. Let's come back after, before Ingrid's... Ingrid's like, "Oh, oh." She bites back once and she's getting beaten down to a pulp here, isn't she? Right. Come... Let's go back to our number six in a moment

Ingrid: Hi, everyone. Welcome back. I must admit, I am enjoying this podcast episode. we've... It's a 10 things. I, you know I love them, so let's quickly move on. because we were in, we've done the donation station, we've done the car, we've done the umbrellas, the fridge, the t- kitchen drawer. So what is our number six then, Lesley, of five-minute decluttering tasks for when you have no time and you're busy?

Lesley: This is an interesting one really, because this is all about pens. Now, pens can be scattered around the house, and so this could potentially be a bigger job than it first seems. But what I want to do, you're in the kitchen at the moment, so what y- what I want to do is I want you to gather any pens that you can find in your kitchen, and they're normally scattered around your kitchen.

So if you've got pens in a office or a study or a kids' bedroom or a b- all that kind of stuff, don't worry about those now. We want to tackle the pens that you've got in a certain area of your home, which is your kitchen. And I want you to go through those pin- pens and see which ones are not working anymore, scribble, get them out.

You know, f- make sure your highlighters are still working, make sure your felt tips are still working. And also have a look at how many you've got, because what typically happens is we have a designated spot for pens, like mine's in my office, but then we also want a couple of pens in our kitchen just to make sure that we, when we want to write something down.

And then they g- I don't know, they gravitate towards the kitchen, then all of a sudden you've got 20 pens in your kitchen when you don't need 20 pens in your kitchen. So that's, this might be the time that you then want to put those pens back to their more sensible holding area, I would say. You know, and we do need pens scattered around the house, and so there's not any one place, is there, right, Ingrid?

We do need them scattered a little bit. But this task is more about going through and getting rid of the dead ones. That's important. There are pen recycling schemes, and so if that's something that floats your boat, go look at those as well. Crayola have one, for crayons. There's loads all around the world.

Have a look whether they're... Just pop into Google pen recycling schemes, and it will pop up, because you don't need to just chuck them in recycling. but I think that definitely is a five-minute job if you stick to one area of pens, right, Ingrid?

Ingrid: Yeah. definitely. I'm just, it made, you, when you were talking about different places, I was thinking to myself, "Oh, where are my pens?" And I actually, I think they're in three places in my house. Exactly, you're right, the kitchen I've got pens. I've got pens in my living room because that's where we've got one of our desks, and in my, here in my home office where I'm sitting now.

So the places. I don't have pens in every room in my house,

Lesley: You do have pens in your handbag,

Ingrid: les-

Lesley: Ingrid. You do have pens in your handbag

Ingrid: I do... But my handbag is in my kitchen, Lesley, so for me that, that made sense. to say, if you want a pen in your handbag, Ingrid,

my

Lesley: you have a pen in your handbag. 'Cause I did berate you for having a pen in your handbag a few weeks ago, and I take it back

Ingrid: You... you did, and the thing was, what, what will make you laugh, Lesley, a while back I went on a weekend trip. I did not bring a pen, I f- I was really like, I needed to write something down. I'm like, "Where's the pen that I needed?" This is now why I know I have a pen in my handbag.

So it really helps for me. But, so pens is really good, but indeed, don't go off on a whole pen quest. This is just the pens while you're in your kitchen to do a little pen, checking and declutter a few. And, you might then realise, like Lesley said, "How is it possible that 20 pens are here?

Some need to be returned to my living room." And this is how we end up on number seven on our list, because you put the pens where they belong, in your pen pot or your desk or whatever it is in your living room. And you might think, "You know what? While I'm here, I'm just gonna do a little tidy up of my sofa and my cushions and just check," pull the s- the cushions apart a little bit.

Has anything fallen in next to my sofa that I've been missing? Because this is how we found one of, Max's knitting needles. when we were doing, when we were rearranging the cushions, and I was like, "Oh, what's this thing that's stabbing me here in my hand?" It was one of Max's knitting needles that he completely forgot that he, he lost.

So I was like, "Hi," on the WhatsApp, "Is this yours?" And he's "How did it end up in your house?" I'm like, "You tell me."

Lesley: Well, I think he does come on occasion. I think your son does visit, so that's a good...

Ingrid: yeah, I

Lesley: And he was there for, like, several weeks over the summer, so it's not like... Guess that ended up in your house. That might be when we actually hear Max. But anyway, you know, and I bet your bottom dollar that you'll probably find a load of pens as well down the side of the sofa.

Now, I think, you

know, we need to really think about what that's gonna be. Now, in my house, that would be a five-minute job. And really we don't have much that goes down the side of the sofa. I pull my sofa cushions off every time I have the sofa, cleaned. you know, every time I clean... Every time I do my living room, I, I make sure I go under, 'cause my sofa's, like, the best place in the entire world.

I've got the biggest sofa in the world. I absolutely love it. Everybody loves it. It's super comfy. Never, ever getting rid of that sofa, ever. I've had it reupholstered, like, three times already. I'm never, ever getting rid of my sofa, because it's massive. You were saying that, weren't you, Ingrid? It's low, it's comfy, I love it.

but it... But, you, you know, you just eat things on that. You know, there's, like, crumbs, isn't there, in everything? Do you know what I mean? And so you do need to keep on top of it a little bit. So I think this is something that you could potentially incorporate into more regular cleaning. If you, if you open it up and you've got like, tons and tons of clutter under there, and pens, and sweet wrappers, and spoons, and socks, and it depends if you've got kids as well, that makes it even worse.

So you might wanna think about increasing the frequency of your taking the cushions off your sofa a little bit. But I think for now, five minutes, take the cushions off your sofa, see what you're faced with, and repatriate all those things that are underneath there. I think that could be a five-minute job.

What do you think?

Ingrid: Y- yeah, I think so, too. I think so, too. Not if you've not done this a year and a half, right? Then it m- then it... You might go, you might pick up the cushion and go, "Okay, this is going on my list of things that I need an hour for." But if you, if this is something that you regularly check, you can just kinda go, "Okay, let me just rearrange it a little bit."

maybe fold up one or two blankets that have gone, like, laying all over the place, put some cushions back, and then you're good to go. Then you're probably at some point walking out your living room and probably seeing some stuff, or maybe you found some stuff in your sofa cushions, like a s- lost sock.

You go, "Okay, that needs to go upstairs in the laundry basket." So you might then go, "Okay, let me just go upstairs. Ooh, there's something on the stairs," because there's always something on the stairs. walk past it. Pick it up, take it with you, and just go, "I'm gonna put this to the place where it belongs."

Whether that's a book that needs to go back to the bedroom, another, another pair of socks that also need to go into the laundry basket, some makeup that you've, in your, bag when you went out last night, and you had some lipstick with you that now needs to go back to the bathroom. All these random things that end up on the stairs to go up, take them with you.

You're on your way anyway, and then you can spend five minutes just walking around, it back to where it belongs. Perfect

Lesley: Absolutely. I love that. And I think, yeah, and it's really good to think about is that a good strategy to have things on the bottom step? You know, Ingrid's a big fan of don't put it down, put it away. And so we want to get you to a point where you're not putting things on the stairs, where you are kind of intentionally going straight to where those things belong, and now you don't have that kind of stair basket or things at the bottom of the stairs.

I have a basket at the bottom of my stairs. I don't have to keep going up and down stairs all the time, but sometimes it might be about emptying that basket. This is something that your kids can do really easily. We're not asking them to put things away. We're just asking them to take things out of the basket and put them in individual rooms so that people who live in those rooms can put them away when they're doing their, daily resets and things like that.

So I think this is definitely a five-minute job. have a think about whether that is you. If you don't have anything on your stairs, then you've got away with it, and you've saved yourself five minutes because now, Ingrid, I think we've done enough. I think we've done enough, right? So we've done eight things, five minutes, so we've probably been going at this moment for about 40 minutes with a fair wind, maybe getting close to an hour, depending on the size of the job.

I think it's time to sit down, have a cup of tea, don't you? But there's still a couple of things that we can do, a couple more five-minute tasks that we can do. So we'll go and put the kettle on. Sit down with a cup of tea. Couple more things that we can do, five-minute tasks

Ingrid: Yes, definitely. So this is the moment you probably, if you're gonna sit down and have a cup of tea, you might think, "You know what? I'm just gonna have a look on my phone." just, and then, the famous scrolling starts and before you know it, two hours of your life have gone. But before you start scrolling, there are two five-minute jobs that you can do that can really help you.

So that's why we thought for number nine, if you are sitting down with your cup of tea, go into your photo roll on your camera roll and just delete 10, 20, 30 photos, depending on how, quick you can delete and how quick your, can find your photo, camera roll and all the things, but just delete some photos. Because when you don't do that at all, you end up with 100,000 photos. But when you five minutes here and there just to keep the volumes a little bit lower, that helps. All these tiny little bits help in the overall feeling. So yeah, we're not saying you now need to sp- delete 1,000 photos.

That's not what... Start with 10, 15, 20, or maybe set yourself a challenge. Put a five-minute timer on and see how many photos you can delete, because you might go, "Oh my gosh, I can delete, 60," which is, a massive boost, right? But if you just do 10, brilliant. Having 10 less is better than not doing any at all, right? Exactly

you need to celebrate those little wins. Yeah.

Lesley: You do. You do. And, I'm...

I got some terrible things on my camera. You know, I, I, y- Ingrid knows only too well that I've got, like, real sort of fat fingers, so I just can't type basically at all. Like, so you're never getting anything... Ingrid's never getting anything from me that's not got, not got a mistype in it. Normally when I do my emails, I check those really carefully so I don't put typos on there.

But if it's just a quick-fire thing, isn't it, that we, we communicate by something called Slack, it's oh, typos galore, typos galore, 'cause I'm too... In the same way that I slop this milk around the fridge, that's the way that I do my typing, very haphazard. So, but I also seem to be very adept at creating screenshots, like in my photo roll.

So I go through my photos, and I've got random screenshots of my screensaver, my wallpaper. You know, not, not screenshots that I purposely did, just that have just happened. I don't... Is that... Do you do that as well? No, of course you don't. Of course you don't. Just me. Just me then. I've got tons of them. Tons of them.

Just they're random screenshots. I, I don't know. L- Things just happen on my phone, when I'm least expecting it. Anyway, so I am definitely a big advocate of, decluttering photos from your camera roll. And of course, I take loads of photos, for decluttering emails, right, Ingrid? So I take photos as I'm going around, and I see things that are decluttering-related that I wanna send you lovely people an email about, and so I've got loads of those.

But I don't necessarily need things later. I don't need to keep hold of those once I've used them, right? So those are the things that would be fair game in my, in my world. And the last thing. So we're still sat there. We've still got our cup of tea. Maybe we need to mix, make ourself a second cup of tea, just so we can do our final five-minute task.

Ingrid, what's our last one?

Ingrid: Yes. while you're having, your phone in your hand, just unsubscribe from a few marketing emails, promotion emails, from shops, newsletters you're no longer interested in. in, scroll down, and hit that unsubscribe button, because you're not only then decluttering that email, you're also have tackled future emails from coming in. So you are helping your future self towards having less email. Because we know some people have thousands, ten thousands of emails. You have to start somewhere. You can't go, now I'm gonna declutter my 34,362 emails." start with every day I'm just gonna unsubscribe from a few so I have less coming in, and then I can also work my way back.

And of course, when you unsubscribe from something, you can go, "While I'm at it, also... Ooh, let me just check how many emails I also have from this company still lurking in my inbox." Do a little search, tick, tick them all, boom, and are gone. So really simple, but it starts with unsubscribing because then it will help you.

Doesn't take that long. We're not saying you need to do your whole inbox, just a few of the emails. And then five minutes, up, five-minute tasks that you can do.

Lesley: Exactly. So I, I, I think realistically if we did them all we're probably at about an hour 10, an hour 15 now. We'll give it, give them a little bit of grace, right? But just to rerun through... Just to run through those quickly. Bag up your donation station. So you're gonna bag up your donation station, you're gonna take it to your car.

Then you're gonna look at the central console in your car while you're there, then you're gonna bring things back from your central console that potentially belong into the house. Might be an umbrella in there. While you're at it, you're gonna look at your umbrellas and you're go- look, gonna look whether any are misfunctional.

Is that a word? Lack of function, not functioning, non-functional, whatever the word is. You know what I mean. Then we're gonna stay in the kitchen and we're gonna do one little shelf in your fridge, not loads in the fridge. You're gonna do one shelf that has been bothering you, and you're gonna do one really simple drawer in your kitchen, possibly the, foils and baking paper, that kind of one, or the dish cloths and tea towels one.

Then we're gonna stay... Then we're gonna, stay in the kitchen. Potentially we're gonna find our pens that are lurking, maybe in our junk drawer, maybe in a pen pot, maybe on the side, and check whether they're still functional or not, and bin or recycle any of the ones that are no longer working. We're gonna go to our sofa and we're gonna check, you know, probably hopefully take the cushions off.

You might need to get a little bit of a Hoover out at this point, so it might push you a little bit past five minutes. But see whether there's anything lurking down the sofa sides that you no longer need. Then we're gonna gather a few things together that we might have found in this whole sofa situation, and we're gonna start taking it upstairs, and on the way we're gonna see whether there's anything else at the bottom of the stairs or in a stair basket that we can take along with us.

By then we're exhausted, so we're gonna sit down, we're gonna get ourselves a cup of tea. We're gonna delete a few photos from our camera roll, and we are gonna unsubscribe from a few marketing company emails. Job done. Part two, Ingrid, last five, how many of those things are you gonna do?

Ingrid: I've literally, while you were reminding everyone of our 10, I've been having a think. I think I'm only gonna do number nine, delete photos from your camera roll. I think I'm good with the pens, with the sofa, because that, that, gets done. Upstairs, I it all the time, and there's hardly stuff on my stairs because I do bring it up every time I go up. Unsubscribing, that's something I am, I'm doing anyway, so yeah. But deleting photos from my camera roll, yeah, I definitely need to do that better.

Lesley: Same. We're, we are each other, Ingrid. We're doing the same things, right? So we're doing the donation station, the shelf in the fridge. Was that the one that we said we were gonna do?

Ingrid: Ja. Ja. Ja.

Lesley: And the photos. So you and I this weekend, that's what we're gonna do. Yeah

Ingrid: I love it. I think that's a really good list. I've really... Yeah, it... This has made me laugh. I've really enjoyed this really glad I could call Lesley out over her sh- over her milk, milk, dregs in her fridge And, yeah, I've enjoyed. So listeners, we know you love a 10 things, so please report back to us which of the 10 five-minute decluttering tasks are you going to tackle?

This podcast comes out on a Friday morning, so it's nearly weekend. Can you find five minutes here or there? You don't have to all do them in one hour, you can just go, I'm good. I'm just gonna do two or three. That sounds like a good plan. That's what I'm gonna do. Or just one. I'm gonna do one on Saturday, and one on Sunday, and one maybe Friday afternoon.

I don't know." It doesn't have to all be done at the same time. So I think that's really important as well to know. But we look forward to hearing from you which five-minute decluttering job, has, made you go, "Yeah, need to put that on my list." So let us know, and we are going to be back next week with a brand-new episode. So thanks so much for being here and for listening and possibly, watching if you, watch this on YouTube, and we'll, we're back next week. So thanks everyone.