You have five minutes.

You have five free minutes to do whatever you like.

What will you do with it?

Get lost on Facebook? Read seventy five random tweets? Stare at your inbox number and freeze? Aimlessly read whatever blogs are crowding your Google Reader?

No. Five minutes are PRECIOUS.

What if I told you these five minutes are the only free five minutes you’d have for the rest of the day?

Now what will you do with them? This is how we should approach time. Like it is precious. Let’s try again…

You have five precious minutes. GO. Do one or two things on this list.

• Use the flag system in your inbox and flag all the emails that must be responded to. Delete the rest.
• Create an auto-signature to use for most-commonly-written replies. Personalize it when you use it, but have it on hand to save yourself from rewriting the details within it a hundred times.
• Download.
• Clear your desk. You’ll start fresh with a clean space.
• Clean off your desktop. File documents in their proper folders.
• Sync your iPhone and delete some of the photos, it’ll go faster.
• Make a playlist of songs that fire you up.
• Throw stuff AWAY. You don’t need it all. Get rid of the clutter.
• Write an email thanking someone - that email you’ve been putting off. 
• Organize your bookmarks in your web browser. Get rid of the ones you don’t need.
• Give your desktop a new wallpaper - something inspiring. Clean it off.

Clutter distracts us. Clutter SLOWS us down. Clutter makes us freeze when we could be making progress and moving forward. Five minutes is a lot of time. Make them count. 

The way to make things happen? Through focus, clarity and appreciation for precious moments. After becoming a mama, I’ve learned these five minutes are fewer and farther in between. And it’s a learned skill to finally be able to capitalize on each one and make it count. Speaking of which, Ms. Kara, our amazing nanny, leaves in 80 minutes. Ready, set…

Go.

Emily