Cleaning the bathroom may very well be the worst of all the household chores, but Apartment Therapy has put together a quick five minute daily routine that can save you the suffering of scrubbing for hours on end.

The basic idea of Apartment Therapy's routine is to break bathroom cleaning into five 60 second chunks that you can do at any point in the day. Here's the basic breakdown:

• Minute one: clearing off surfaces.
• Minute two: surface cleaning.
• Minute three: straightening.
• Minute four: wipe down mirrors and fixtures.
• Minute five: assess and wipe down anything else.

You can mix things up a bit to fit your needs. For instance, my bathroom is the size of a small closet so clearing off surfaces is pretty much non-existant, but I could spend that minute sweeping instead. The important part to remember is to keep it short and do it daily so you don't have to do a deep scrub down the line. Head over to Apartment Therapy for a breakdown of each minute and more cleaning suggestions.

How to Keep Your Bathroom Clean in 5 Minutes A Day | Apartment Therapy

Photo by Katie Brody.

DIY projects are time-consuming and more often than not, it's easier to just go out and buy whatever you need instead of trying to make it. However, in an interview with the blog Consumerism Commentary, Make Magazine editor Mark Frauenfelder shares his approach to tackle the time factor: dedicate 15 minutes every day to a project.

It's a pretty simple idea, but as Frauenfelder notes, 15 minutes a day adds up pretty quickly over time. He explains:

I took a much more realistic approach: What if I gave myself 15 minutes a day to get away from the computer and work on a project? And I think almost anybody can give himself 15 minutes a day. But it really adds up and after a month or so, that's a considerable amount of hours that you've been able to devote making things.

It's certainly not the immediate gratification most people want, but setting aside 15 minutes to work on a project is far easier to do than finding an entire afternoon. Hit up the link of Consumerism Commentary for a few more tips on getting your DIY projects off the ground.

How to Be a DIYer Without Time or Talent | Consumerism Commentary

Photo by Adam Greig.

Have you ever found yourself starting up the likes of Netflix or Hulu and then staring at the different options for 20 minutes before making a choice on what you want to watch? It's not only a waste of time, it also makes the already time-consuming act of watching a movie more drawn out. While you'll never be able to completely remove the burden of choice, you do have some options to make things move a little quicker.

Regardless of what type of movie and TV offering you fancy—whether it's streaming, on demand cable, torrenting, or physical copies—being overwhelmed with choices is a particularly modern problem. With Comcast's On Demand services arriving on the Xbox 360 options are getting even more overwhelming. Picking out a movie these days often feels like wandering into a Blockbuster circa 1995 at the end of a busy Friday night when all your top choices have already been checked out. So, what can you do? Let's take a look at some of the options.

Keep a Running List of What You Want to Watch Curated from Your Favorite Sources

You can think of this as a to-do list for your media. Every time you catch wind of a new show or movie from a friend or your favorite entertainment journalist, add it to a list. If you're digging through options on cable or from your computer, you can compare this list to what you have available to you and run with it from there.

You can also start queuing those options up right away so when they are available they'll appear in your queue. This is especially handy for movies that are in the theater that you have no desire to actually go out the theater to see.

Use Movie Recommendation Engines to Whittle Down the List

If you're using the streaming services you have a few really good options for help making your choice. First off, the built-in recommendation engines on Hulu and Netflix are actually pretty solid, albeit a bit limiting. If you really enjoy Law and Order, it's probably worth checking out what they're recommending based on that. Unfortunately, you can't always just pull up those recommendations on a whim.

If you're in the mood for a particular genre, the best option is to head over to Instantwatcher and check out a curated list of everything available on Netflix (and in turn a good chunk of what's available on Hulu). Click the genre you're interested in, sort by Rotten Tomatoes or New York Times scores, and you'll be watching something good in no time.

While Instantwatcher has been the king of this type of curated content for a while, Netflix and Hulu availability is slowly being integrated into more review sites. The Chicago Reader, for instance, allows you to sort and read its reviews based on streaming availability. Other sites, like Jinni, take a different approach and allow you to search by mood, plot, or location.

Alternately, if you happen to subscribe to all the streaming services and own an iPhone, Fanhattan is a terrific way to browse Hulu, Netflix, Vudu, iTunes, and others all at once. If you really want to watch something similar to The Jerk right now and don't care how much you have to pay to get it, Fanhattan can show you what's available.

Set a Time Limit on Your Choice

As someone who has consistently spent 20 minutes searching through a Netflix queue only to turn it off and wander off to do something else, setting up a time limit for choices is an important step. After all, this isn't like buying a car or a home, it's about how you're going to spend the next couple of hours. If you can't make that choice quickly it's time to do something else. If you need to, set up a whole block of time devoted just to watching entertainment and stick to it. The longer you spend picking a movie out, the shorter a movie you'll have to watch.

Clear Out Everything You've Already Watched

One feature that Netflix could really use is a "watched library," where after you watch something, it takes it out of your queue and sends into a library so you can return to it later if you want. Since that isn't possible and movies and TV shows stay in your queue for as long as they're available on all the streaming services, I find it helpful to go through and delete movies from the queue I've already watched so I can quickly get to new things.

You can apply this same idea in the physical space as well. Instead of organizing your DVDs (or Blu-Rays or Laserdiscs or whatever) alphabetically when you buy them, set aside a section at the end with "new arrivals." This is your constant reminder that you still haven't got around to watching something. You can, of course, sort digital files in the same way by sorting by "date modified" or "last played."

Consider the Social Elements That Might Benefit You

One of the big things that comes with a set TV schedule is the added layer of social interaction that comes with it. Watercooler conversations about Lost, for instance, were a huge part of the experience. As silly as it might sound, this is actually a really good weight to put on your entertainment choices. Did a friend just watch and recommend a movie to you? In that case, it might be beneficial to watch it now so you can discuss it with them while it's still fresh in their heads.

If the element of choice is a perpetual problem for you it might also be worthwhile to consider limiting your options. If you have Sickbeard automatically downloading new shows, a Netflix subscription, cable, iTunes, a DVD collection, and a Hulu subscription, you might be better off dropping all that down to the one or two services you really use. Too many entertainment options can not just be a problem, but a hassle. How do you typically handle the overabundance of media at your fingertips and make a choice quickly?

Title photo by Sean McGinnia.

A large part of how quickly you get into the zone and how much work you get done when you're there has to do with your surroundings—physical aspects like the level of ambient noise around you all the way to psychological distractions, like the ones we've mentioned before. Don't underestimate the importance of making sure your physical surroundings match up with your work however, from having everything you need within reach to making sure the environment is quiet enough to focus.

Over at Hack College, this excellent post on hacking your environment to maximize your learning is geared towards people who need to get some serious studying done, whether they're alone or in groups, but the tips work just as well if you're working on a development project, a DIY project, or just trying to whittle down your to-do list.

Some of the items on the list are the basics, like making sure you're working in a quiet room—or that you have just the right amount of noise in the room to help you focus but not distract you, but others, like making sure you have all of the tools you need ready and at hand for when you need them, are tips that often go overlooked. They also suggest you make sure you have functional control over your environment, like the ability to close a door, change the temperature, or adjust it to your comfort—even if you don't need them, you'll feel better and settle in more smoothly knowing that they're available.

Some of the other tips are ones we've mentioned in the past, like making use of products like RescueTime to track your time and AdBlock to block out distractions on the web, but the whole piece is a great read for students and busy office dwellers. How do you tweak your surroundings to maximize your productivity? If you work in an office where you can't control the temperature or lighting, how do you cope? Share your tips in the comments below.

How To Hack Your Environment For Maximum Learning | Hack College