The Importance of Five Minutes

I recently read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. In it she talks about being aware of how much time everything takes in your day. It made me start watching how much time it takes my kids to do an activity.

I've noticed that five minutes seems to often be enough. They can sit down and play with something for longer, but five minutes seems to be the minimum for satisfaction in play. I had been in the habit of saying "No" often to a craft or activity idea, thinking that we didn't have time.

So now I ask myself, "Do we have five minutes?" The answer is usually yes. I do have five minutes to swing you before I have to send that e-mail. I do have five minutes to let you paint a picture. We can read that book for five minutes. Sure, you can play karaoke for five minutes.

I'm always conscious of being on time to the next activity, but even if I squeeze in five more minutes, we're usually not late. And allowing ourselves five minutes leads to more quality time together. The kids are happy, and so am I.