Ever felt overwhelmed by your to-do list? Yeah, me too. I have a system where I write down daily appointments and tasks in a datebook (With a pen! So quaint!) and keep lists of groceries and household chores on my iPhone. I am typically solid on meeting work deadlines and responding to anything social, but I used to have a major problem putting off small, tedious tasks. That led to a lot of dumb stress, a very messy and cluttered apartment, and a collection of dead plants.
A few months ago I embraced a rule that made my life approximately one million times easier. It’s called the one-minute rule, and I learned about it on Twitter. Apparently the term is something author and happiness expert Gretchen Rubin came up with, and the idea is super simple: If a task will take you a minute or less to complete, do it as soon as you realize it needs to be done.
“Because the tasks are so quick, it isn’t too hard to make myself follow the rule—but it has big results,” Rubin wrote in a blog post about the idea. “Keeping all those small, nagging tasks under control makes me more serene, less overwhelmed.”
This appealed to me on every possible level: Becoming more organized and feeling less stressed, in literal seconds? Could it be this simple?
I asked Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., a psychologist and professor who has studied procrastination, whether this sort of habit could be useful in the long run. He told me that the one-minute rule can be helpful for people who need to manage their time better, or for people who put off very specific things (see my never-ending battle with dirty dishes, below).
“If someone is a chronic procrastinator, giving them a one-minute plan will probably not be effective,” he says. “But if someone needs to learn time management skills, the plan could work.” Ferrari says that forming a habit like this can help you prioritize certain tasks, and stop you from delaying things needlessly.
For example: Unloading the dishwasher is a boring task I don’t enjoy, so I wouldn’t do it right away. Then I would use a dish or a spoon, and when it was dirty I would rinse it and leave it in the sink. Then a pile of rinsed-but-not-clean dishes would grow. Then when I finally got around to it, I’d have to spend 20 minutes emptying the dishwasher, putting away the clean dishes, then working my way through layers of used plates and utensils, re-rinsing them and putting them into the newly empty dishwasher, all while beating myself up for not unloading the clean dishes in the first place. Pointless, right?
After embracing the rule, I inwardly groaned the first time I heard the dishwasher beep. But I dutifully went into the kitchen and put the dishes away, and it took next to no time. For the next three days, my sink remained free of dirty dishes while the dishwasher slowly filled up. My heart sang! The next time I needed to run the dishwasher, I did have to stash a glass in the sink mid-cycle, but unloading the washer as soon as it was done and putting the glass right in there felt very, very satisfying.
As time went on, I realized how harvesting the power of 60 seconds or less to hang up my jacket (or whatever) lessens the likelihood I’ll have to dedicate any serious time to the task down the line. It also frees up mental space and gives me time to focus on whatever I want, whether that’s a big work project or a very important Netflix marathon.
I am sorry to admit that I live in my e-mail inbox. I pride myself on maintaining inbox zero, but I also had this weird hangup where I was reluctant to respond to an email too quickly in case it made me look overly eager or some other such nonsense. Now, if I get an email that requires a yes/no answer, or checking my calendar, or some other speedy response, I do it right away. And if that means I respond to someone 45 seconds after receiving their message, so be it. Firing off the fast emails frees me up to respond to necessary things more thoughtfully later on, and also ensures my inbox doesn’t overwhelm me. What’s more, it shows clients and editors that I’m responsive and easy to reach, which I hope will help bolster my freelance career.
Previously, it was all too easy to let small household chores build up. My husband and I would abandon coffee mugs, leave pajamas on the bathroom floor, take out a screwdriver for something and leave it on the kitchen counter afterwards, and so on. Then every few days we’d get frustrated about the state of things and dedicate a serious chunk of time to tidying up. This doesn’t happen any more, and it’s amazing. I’m aware this sounds unbelievably basic, but putting things back where they belong doesn’t come easily to me. So, teaching myself to do it right away was really helpful! My husband is also working on this…but it's a process.
I’m a full-time freelance writer and I work mostly from home. There are days when I feel like I haven’t gotten anything done and I’m convinced I am an abject failure. It made a tremendous difference when I could say to myself “well, today as well as working on stories you didn’t finish yet, you also handled the laundry, sent 10 query emails, and watered all your plants.” It’s hard to quantify writing work, so feeling like I at least have other parts of my life covered is pretty helpful.
It won’t work for everyone and doesn’t work for everything, but adopting this minor habit has made me personally much less stressed. Because I’m something of an anxious perfectionist, knowing I have an unfinished task weighs on my mind. So the fewer things I put off doing, the less I have to worry about—which is a win all around.
