Get Organized Day 11 | The One-Minute Rule

Have you heard about the one-minute rule? (And no, I’m not talking about how long you can let food can sit on the floor and still be eat it.) The one-minute rule I’m referring to is this: if a job takes less than one minute to complete, then don’t put it off. Do it right now. Get it done. The thought is that you don’t put off cleaning up or organizing your things. You get the job done when it needs to be done. Right then. Right now. Nothing piles up. The papers and scissors and dishes and stuff gets organized and stays organized. I didn’t write the one-minute rule. It’s been around a while. Even Gretchen Rubin mentioned it in The Happiness Project.

I’ve been trying to follow the one-minute rule this month. And it’s helping. I swear it. My bathroom counter is cleaner. I get the dishwasher unloaded in a timely way, it’s certainly helped the kitchen counter, and the kids toys aren’t scattered to the four corners of our house. I don’t feel overwhelmed when I do things in one-minute increments. And I can see the difference, which might be the biggest motivation of all.

But what does the one-minute rule have to do with my bundt pan?

I made pumpkin bread this week. (I feel victim to all the October-based pumpkin hype.) And I used the bundt pan because it’s pretty and makes anything baked feel extra special. In the past, when I have used it, it gets washed and then left on the counter to dry. And there it sits for, well, forever. Enter the one-minute rule. And the very same bundt pan was used, washed, set out to dry. And then, in much less than one minute, it was put away. That was that.

Ahh. Organization.