38. I’m In Love with the 1-Minute Rule – And You Will be Too

I was inspired this week to try out the one-minute rule.  Haven’t heard about it yet???  You can read about it here on Gretchen Rubin’s site.  Or I can explain it to you in a single sentence: If you can do a task in a minute or less . . . DO IT.

For me, this has meant getting rid of a lot of the paper work that I find piles up . . . Bills get filed as soon as they’re opened – it takes less than a minute and saves me the hour of sorting and filing that I used to spend once every few months in the past.  As soon as I get home, a load of laundry goes in.  Ok, so, doing constant loads of laundry may not sound like the most fun, but I’d rather sort just one basket of laundry a day than 5 baskets of clothes in a single go once a week.  And of course, there’s all the stuff the kids bring home – I have a folder in my kitchen for all the school stuff I may need on a moment’s notice (class lists, spelling test lists, that kind of thing).  Everything else gets put into it’s rightful place right away . . . forms are filled out and put right back into their backpacks, art work is “filed accordingly” (either in the blue bin, or in the “keep forever” bin), and garbage, dirty clothes, leftover snacks, all get dealt with as soon as we get home.

Of course, this is all well and good . . .but there are 2 other little people and one other adult that live in this house too!  But you know what, it’s a whole lot easier to get buy-in from the other adult, and especially the little people, when I ask them to do something that is only going to take one minute.  With the kids, I often make it a race . . . who can make their bed in less than one minute?  Who can clean up the most in one minute?  And with the Husband, well, it’s far easier to take little things quickly through the course of the week than try and fit in an hour or more of little chores during the weekends.

So . . . I have a (relatively) tidier house, I’m more on top of things than ever before, and there has been buy-in with this project from the whole family . . . what’s not to love???