Warning: I tried the 5 minute rule for my junk drawer and it backfired hard

I read somewhere that if a task takes under 5 minutes you should just do it right away, so I tried this on my kitchen junk drawer last Saturday. What I thought would take 5 minutes turned into 2 hours because I kept finding stuff that needed a 'quick' decision and then I was googling whether old batteries can go in the trash. I ended up with a pile of 14 pens that all sort of worked and a stack of takeout menus from places that closed years ago. The weird part is I felt way more tired after doing all those tiny things than if I had just cleaned the whole drawer in one go. I think the 5 minute rule works for emails but not for physical stuff that piles up, at least not for me. Anyone else tried this and had it go sideways, or am I just doing it wrong?

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stellafisher9d ago

The "pile of 14 pens that all sort of worked" part got me because I did the exact same thing with my bathroom cabinet last month. I told myself I would just toss expired stuff, but then I had to sniff every lotion to see if it went bad, and I spent like 20 minutes on a makeup bag deciding if dried out mascara counts as trash. The tiny decisions are what get you, because each one feels fast but they add up into this weird foggy tiredness. Now I just dump the whole drawer on the counter and deal with it in one sitting with music on, way less draining.

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