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• Vacuum a room or two.

• Give the toilets a quick once-over; spray on bowl cleaner and give a good swish with bowl brush.

• Sweep your patio or deck.

• Create a week's worth of dinner menus.

• Put ingredients in your Crock Pot for tonight’s dinner.

• Unload the dishwasher and set the table.

• Make tomorrow's sack lunches while cleaning up from dinner. Store them in the refrigerator.

• Establish a nightly 10-minute clean-up dash. As a timer ticks off 10 minutes, have everyone in the house pick up and put away the clutter accrued that day, take out the trash, change the cat litter, and so on.

If you discover two or three 10-minute segments, here's what you could do in 20- to 30-minutes:

• Walk through your house with a plastic garbage bag and see how much clutter you can gather. Toss out things like expired coupons, old catalogs and magazines, single or worn-out socks (save a few for cleaning), extra grocery bags (keep only four or five on hand), items that are beyond-hope broken, games with missing pieces and the like. Do this the night before garbage pickup so you won't be tempted to retrieve anything.

• Vacuum underneath family room sofa pillows and upholstered chair cushions. Use brush attachment to dust baseboards, moldings, and lampshades.

• Clear off a catch-all surface -- like a countertop, coffee table or the top of the dryer. Dust the surface when it's cleared.

• Store seasonal clothes or organize part of your closet.

• Hose down outdoor furniture.

• Brown a couple of pounds of ground beef and freeze in serving-size plastic bags so you'll be a step ahead the next time you fix tacos or spaghetti sauce.

• Purge your pantry of food that's outlived suggested shelf life. Clean out odds and ends from your refrigerator and freezer.

Write your own list of 10, 20, and 30-minute tasks, and post it in a central location. Recruit family members to practice the Power of 10. Every time you "catch" someone using free minutes to get something done, offer words of praise or give a weekly reward to the person who accrues the most segments. Before you know it, all those minutes used productively here and there will free up a large block of time you can use for rest and recreation -- well-deserved rewards.

Best known as "America’s Family Manager," Kathy Peel is the author of 18 best-selling books designed to help you make your household run more efficiently. If you follow her advice, she promises you’ll reap these rewards: a home that's clean and clutter-free, a family that pitches in willingly, delicious meals in minutes and more time for yourself.