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" You know the drill. You say something to your family like, &amp;quot;Guys, could you please clean up the living room?&amp;quot; Nothing happens. You ask again. Still nothing. Sooner or later, guess who ends up cleaning the living room\u2026and the whole house? You. No more. Instead of begging your family for help, try these 10-minute cleaning games that everyone will love.     If You Have Preschoolers\u2026   The Strategy:   Engage them in an activity so that they don&amp;#039;t even know they&amp;#039;re cleaning.   Ideas:   Bin It Set up colored bins in children&amp;#039;s rooms, one for each category: dolls, books, Legos, etc. Then sit with them and see if they know which bin each toy goes into. Clap when they do it correctly. They&amp;#039;ll think it&amp;#039;s fun, and the new system will be easy for them to manage on their own.   Alphabet Have kids spot things that need to be put away, in alphabetical order: Animals! Board games! Chairs! Dolls!   I Spy &amp;quot;I spy something blue that&amp;#039;s not in its home!&amp;quot; Enough said.   Number Time Choose a number you want your child to remember (say, your phone number or address), and together put away items that correspond to those numbers. For example, &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s the first number of our zip code?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;1!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s find one ball each and put it away\u2026What&amp;#039;s the next number?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;3!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s get three pieces of clothing and put them in the hamper.&amp;quot; And so on.   Make-Believe Never underestimate the powers of fantasy. Try, &amp;quot;You are the Princess of Clean, and you rule your kingdom with paper towels and Windex!&amp;quot; Or, &amp;quot;The dirty floor is enemy territory, and you need to expand your clean base so you can set up an organized tent fort!&amp;quot; This works. Promise.   (Kid Tip! Rather than telling kids to &amp;quot;put toys away,&amp;quot; encourage them to put toys &amp;quot;in their homes.&amp;quot; This will help prevent a decade of teenagers stuffing items into the wrong drawers and cabinets.)   If You Have Grade-Schoolers and Tweens\u2026    The Strategy:   Get siblings competing against each other so they&amp;#039;ll think of it as a fun contest, not cleaning.   Ideas:   Race Against the Clock Set a timer, and bet the kids they can&amp;#039;t clean up an area in under 10 minutes. For each minute they finish under 10 minutes, they get a treat. (Note: Try this for backpacks, too. Call it &amp;quot;Backpack Dump&amp;quot;\u2014 once a week, give kids 10 minutes to empty and sort through their bag.)   Mailman Let everyone know that from now on, you&amp;#039;ll be putting their homeless items (toys, papers, clothes) in a basket. Each night one child plays Mailman and delivers items to each member of the house. You&amp;#039;ve just saved yourself a full 22 minutes of going up and down the stairs\u2014so sit and watch TV or open that book you&amp;#039;ve been dying to read.   Laundry Basketball Install a hoop over the laundry bin, set up 1-, 2- and 3-point lines, and challenge the kids to a shoot-off with their dirty clothes. Have them go by color (whites, then darks, then colors), so the sorting&amp;#039;s done for you. The loser does the laundry.   Toy Purge Place a basket in each child&amp;#039;s room, and whoever fills his basket with items to be donated first wins a treat. This gets competitive\u2014your jaw will drop when they ask to fill more baskets. Just make sure they don&amp;#039;t donate anything important.   Incentivize Got a kid who responds to rewards? Tell her that for the next week, she&amp;#039;ll earn 1 point for every night she goes to bed with her stuff put away. Reach 5 points, and she gets a prize.   Car Crazy! When you shriek &amp;quot;Caaar Craaazy!!!&amp;quot;, they have 10 minutes to clean their seat in the car. Provide a handheld vacuum and glass cleaner, and while they clean the mere 30 square feet of car space, you can pop the hood and check the oil and windshield fluid, then inspect their work. Voil\u00E0: Car clean, maintenance check complete.   Clear the Table With a dryerase marker, write &amp;quot;Winner!&amp;quot; on the bottom of one cup or plate. The kids clear the table, and whoever gets the winning item\u2014and finishes clearing the table\u2014gets a reward.   Dishwasher Marathon Your kid needs to rack up 100 points to earn something she enjoys. Dirty pots and pans are 20 points, serving plates 10 points, plates 5 points, silverware 2 points.     If You Need Solo Motivation\u2026   The Strategy:   Playing little games in your head can make an activity lots more fun.   Ideas:   Clear Path For the whole day, pick up and put away whatever&amp;#039;s in your path. If it&amp;#039;s not in your path, don&amp;#039;t worry about it.   Delusional Cleaning Lady Trick yourself into pretending you&amp;#039;re a visiting cleaning lady with a new customer, and you&amp;#039;ve just entered her home. Study the room objectively, turn on a timer and clean for 10 minutes.   Sexy Cleaning Lady Who says organizing can&amp;#039;t be naughty? When your partner&amp;#039;s around, put on the most alluring cleaning outfit you can come up with, turn on the timer and seductively clean. Insist that you must keep cleaning for a full 10 minutes.   Phone Fun Make yourself a rule that as long as you&amp;#039;re on the phone with a friend, you must restore order to whatever&amp;#039;s in front of you. Rehang fallen closet items, return kitchen utensils to their homes, tidy up the pet toys.    If You Need the Whole Family to Clean\u2026   The Strategy:   Make cleaning a group activity. Those 10 little minutes fly when everyone&amp;#039;s working together.   Ideas:   Horseshoes I&amp;#039;ll be honest: This is inspired by a college drinking game that I consistently lost (but your kids don&amp;#039;t need to know that). Set up a stake, and have each person toss a horseshoe three times. The shoe farthest away is 1 point, next closest 2 points, and so on. After three rounds, the winner gets to choose what the two lowest scorers clean for 10 minutes.   Refrigerator Factory Assign each person a position in the factory line: One removes gross items from the refrigerator, one tosses items in the trash, another cleans out jars and bottles for recycling, and another wipes off the shelves. The fridge will sparkle.   Inspection! Tell everyone to get ready for Inspection. If you have a blowhorn, it will increase the effect. They&amp;#039;ll run to their rooms, close the doors and spend 10 minutes cleaning up. The guidelines: Everything has to be off the floor, dolls lined up, items in their homes, beds made. You enter each room wearing your Inspection outfit (latex gloves? glasses?) and inspect with CSI intensity. Some &amp;quot;pass,&amp;quot; some &amp;quot;fail.&amp;quot; Kids love this. Husbands find it intriguing (&amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re inspecting my side of the room? Really?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Yep.&amp;quot;).   Pickup Like the above version, just have everyone do it. Set a timer for 10 minutes and see what can get put away. Kids can clean up their own toys; teens and adults can be directed toward problem areas; toddlers can watch how much fun cleaning is. Make it a daily game and clutter will stay at a minimum.   10-Minute Dance-Off Everyone gets to pick a favorite song, and you play them one after another for about 10 minutes. Anyone who&amp;#039;s caught not dancing while cleaning? He gets to clean for another 10. Yes, it is possible to wiggle to music while scrubbing a floor.   Cleaning Games and Products   Egg Timer This little guy is so cute that you&amp;#039;ll want to time things. Kids who can&amp;#039;t yet tell time can see at a glance which way the egg is facing. Mech-Timey Egg Timer, $6; Amazon.com   Laundry Hoop Encourage clothes to end up in the right place with this ingenious hoop for kids. Personalized Basketball Laundry Shoot, $19; WalMart.com   Storage Bins These versatile bins work for any of the basket games and come in a few colors, plus the covers are washable. Canvas Storage Totes in S, M, L for $8, $10 and $13; BedBathandBeyond.com   Indoor/Outdoor Horseshoes These four rubber horseshoes, plus a rubber mat and peg, are safe to toss indoors. Champion Sports Indoor/ Outdoor Horseshoe Set, $20; DicksSportingGoods.com    5 Never-Fail Rewards:   1. Extra TV, video game or computer time   2. A little extra allowance or spending money   3. Staying up a half-hour later on a weekend night (or sleeping in for an extra half-hour)   4. Their pick of a special meal (Friday-night pizza, Saturday breakfast)   5. More time to do whatever it is he or she loves, whether it&amp;#039;s building models or making jewelry "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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