Use the ‘Five-Minute Snowball’ to Find Cleaning Motivation

How to finally get up off the couch and get things done.

I’m always looking for new ways to motivate myself to do things I don’t want to do. Sometimes I try to trick myself by just getting up and jumping into a task for a few minutes to get it over with—and it works! I find myself getting into the work, getting carried away, and doing more than I intended to. But I didn’t really have a name for it. Then I saw this blog post from the Everyday Organiser that gives a name to the practice: the Five-Minute Snowball. If you have a hard time getting yourself to do tedious tasks—especially cleaning and organizing—I recommend you try it.

What is the five-minute snowball?

This is a simple twist on other time-management and motivational techniques: You can start a timer or just glance at your phone, but decide right then and there that you’re going to get to work for five minutes. That’s all you need to vow to do. It’s just five minutes. Then, when the timer goes off or you check your phone, you’ll likely realize time flew by. 

Personally, I recommend not setting a timer at all. Strict time limits can feel harsh and if you’re stressed out already, that might not be helpful for you. I’ve found that if I just get to work, I’m always shocked by how much time has actually gone by when I check the time again, so a timer letting me know that my five minutes is up wouldn’t be too beneficial. 

The goal here is to commit yourself to a manageable time goal. Five minutes really isn’t that bad, but you’re liable to discover you blow past that because it’s such a small amount of time, especially once you get into your groove. If, however, you don’t, it’s not demoralizing; you only set out to do five minutes and as long as you meet that goal, you accomplished what you set out to do. 

Why this works

I like this less-structured approach compared to, say, the Pomodoro technique, which asks you to work in longer, more defined chunks, adding small breaks in between. The nice thing about launching a five-minute snowball is that it’s completely manageable and doable, so instead of feeling bad if you don’t grind for 15 or 20 minutes straight, you feel satisfied when you meet your goal. Setting attainable goals is important, especially when you’re working on a task you don’t like, because you have to prioritize those positive feelings and avoid the negative ones that can keep you from moving forward. 

The general lack of structure here is great because you won’t be counting down minutes while you’re working. You know it’s a small amount of time and it’ll pass quickly, so you can focus on the task instead of the time. Overall, when you operate this way, you're spending less time plotting out what you need to do (or making excuses for why you can't or won't do it) and jumping straight into doing, which is much more engaging.

Cleaning techniques that can work with a five-minute snowball

A little structure isn’t so bad, though, so try incorporating a decluttering or cleaning method into your snowballing. There are a bunch out there, but these work well in small bursts:

• You can do the ski-slope method, or the practice of organizing small sections of a room in a random order, in five-minute bursts, dedicating each snowball to one little area.

• The 12-12-12 method involves finding 12 things to throw away, 12 to donate, and 12 to put away every day. You can break that down into three unique, five-minute bouts to make it less overwhelming.

• Using the Decluttering at the Speed of Life method, you work through five steps—starting with tossing trash and ending with organizing everything you keep—but you don’t have to do it all at once and can instead move through the steps in bursts using the snowball technique.