I'll be honest. Ten minutes is not a miracle, and I don't have a magic wand. What 10 minutes gives you is progress, and that works even better when your house is a disaster.

When our home feels out of control, it feels like we're failing. The problem feels so big that we don't even start. In my experience, when things feel overwhelming, I want to zone out, doom scroll or watch TV. Ten minutes gives you a concrete place to start. And once you start making progress, it's addictive.

I used to do weekend marathon cleaning sessions. I confused tidying, decluttering, organizing and cleaning, and I tried to do all four at the same time. I'd do a little bit here and a little bit there, and I never finished a full project.

I let everything pile up for the weekend, then spent the time I wanted with my family cleaning instead. I panic cleaned before people came over and did all-day laundry sessions. Then I'd get so upset when the house got messy again.

Our homes get messy because we live in them. Doing 10 minutes at a time took away the pressure for everything to look perfect. My home doesn't look like a magazine spread on any given day, and that's absolutely fine.

I know where this one comes from. A lot of habit coaches tell you to start with the smallest step, like flossing one tooth, putting on your running shoes or walking for one minute, so momentum carries you further.

I'm not trying to trick you into a marathon tidying session. I really do want you to stop at 10 minutes. Set the timer, race the clock, do as much as you can, then stop and reward yourself for stopping. Stopping is what keeps you coming back tomorrow and the next day.

Honestly, no. I can clean a whole bathroom in about 20 minutes, including the shower, tub, sink, toilet, mirrors and floor.

So in Tindy, I broke every chore in our home into roughly 10-minute pieces. Our bathrooms are split in two: the shower and tub on one day, and the sink, mirror, toilet and floor on another. If someone else cleans it and only gets the sinks done, that's okay. We're not living by perfectionist standards anymore.

One tip is to spray everything down first and let it sit for a minute. The cleaner does a lot of the work, so you scrub less.

It can take all weekend if you're tackling your whole garage or house, and if you have a real deadline, that's a one-off. Otherwise, I'd love for you to do a Mighty Tidy, which is 30 minutes on one room or one area.

In my office, one set of drawers might fill my whole 30 minutes. If I finish it in 15, I start the next set. Don't bite off more than you can chew. The more focused you are, the more lasting your progress will be, and the less you'll redo the same spaces.

Usually it's because the stuff coming in hasn't slowed down. Kids bring things home from school, and we bring home clothes, groceries and things for the house. That's normal. We just don't want the inflow to outweigh our progress.

Picture a leaky rowboat in the middle of a lake. Water is pouring in through a hole in the bottom. Before bailing, you have to plug the hole. Some water will still come in, but now you can keep up. Decluttering a home that keeps filling up is bailing without plugging the hole.

Before you let something go, look at it through the lens of why you loved it. What's the story behind it? That might rekindle your joy for it. If it doesn't fit, if it's ugly or if it brings up icky feelings, let it go. Just don't let things go only to make room for the new shiny thing. Homes that tell the story of your life are so inviting.

This is exactly why I ask for 10 minutes. I know you're drained. The problem is waking up to the mess, which starts the next day off on the wrong foot.

If 10 minutes is too much, do 5. If 5 is too much, do 2, or even 1. I want you to get into the habit of doing something. Try fitting it in while the kids get ready for bed, or do it as a family. We try to tidy before dinner so we can relax afterward. When that doesn't happen, we tidy right after dinner, since everyone is already up clearing their plates.

This was me, and it's why I built Tindy. I could never stick to a cleaning schedule with bathrooms on Monday, the kitchen on Tuesday and dusting on Thursday. I'd start the week strong, clean one bathroom, and then the whole rest of the week fell apart. I always felt like I was failing.

So I took a page out of the ADHD handbook and looked for something more dopamine-inducing. Ten minutes instead of a whole project works so well for tidying. For cleaning, I created Sm'ores, which are small chores. They get dealt out like cards, so there's a little anticipation about which one you'll draw. If someone gets the worst one, everyone teases them a little, and it turns into teamwork. Tindy gets to be the bad guy dealing the cards instead of me.

To me, tidying every day is the opposite of cleaning forever. When I did my Tindy before recording this episode, my dining table had about 10 things on it, and I honestly couldn't find anything else to tidy.

When you're consistent, there's less to do. The 10-minute tidies put things away regularly. The Mighty Tidies clear out what you don't need, so everything has a place. The Sm'ores keep the cleaning happening in the background. It all works together.

Compassion first. This is a season. As Gretchen Rubin says, the days are long, but the years are short. It feels like your house will be full of toys forever, and it won't. I have a teenager now, and those small daily messes are mostly behind us.

Now a little tough love. If your kids clean up at preschool or school, they're capable of cleaning up at home. Give the toys clear places to go, make cleanup easy, and make putting toys away part of your house rules. It's a teachable moment.

The short answer is you don't. They're going to roll their eyes, and that's healthy. I have the best kid on the planet, and we still get some attitude. We keep the mood light and set the expectation that this is something we do as a family. Everyone's phone goes away for 10 minutes, and when the timer ends, everyone gets them back. That's real motivation for a teenager.

I know life is full. That's why it's only 10 minutes. It fits in the margins of your day. The more you do it, the less there is to clean up, so you come home from a long workday to a house that's already tidy.

About 5 hours a month. If you spent a whole Saturday doing that, your house would be a mess again by Wednesday. In 10-minute pieces, you get 5 hours of work done without noticing, and your home stays tidy.

You absolutely don't need an app. You can set a calendar reminder, set a timer and take your own before and after photos.

I'm biased, but Tindy works so well for us. It keeps my streak, saves the before and afters, deals out the Sm'ores and lets me assign certain chores to certain family members. Little ones can fluff pillows or match socks, and you can be the only one who cleans your bathroom.

It's less than $3 a month, and every episode of this podcast is ad-free inside it. Most of all, I don't have to remember to do it.

Set a timer for 10 minutes and do an easy pass around your house:

• Gather the trash

• Do the dishes

• Start a load of laundry

• Tidy the spot where you relax at night

Race your family, and let the winner pick the show or the dessert. With three of you, that's 30 minutes of tidying in 10. With five of you, it's almost an hour.

Want the reminder and the timer done for you? Try Tindy free at tindy.app, where you'll also find every episode of this podcast ad-free.

Didn't hear your question? Email me at deanna@wannabeclutterfree.com, or comment on YouTube or Instagram. I'll be doing more of these.

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