The One-minute Rule: A Tip For Keeping An Apartment Always Tidy

If you fall into the category of overworked professionals and/or busy moms, you know how hard it is to keep an apartment consistently tidy. To prevent clutter from taking over your home when you're short on time, there's a trick known as the one-minute rule. We'll explain what it entails in 5 questions.

Who invented the one-minute rule?

The "one-minute rule" is a method of tidying up and maintaining the home that comes from Japan. This technique, inspired by the Japanese kaizen philosophy, demonstrates once again that the Japanese are champions in the meticulous organization of daily life.

Marie Kondo and her famous Konmari method is just one example of what the Land of the Rising Sun can teach us in the field of tidying up. In this archipelago where homes are sometimes very small, it is essential to know how to sort and tidy to optimize space and live in a clean and serene environment.

With the “one-minute rule,” it is not the space that we seek to optimize, but rather the time we dedicate each day to household chores.

What is the principle of the one-minute rule?

The one-minute rule truly lives up to its name as it involves dedicating just one minute to a cleaning or tidying task.

At first glance, one minute might seem too short to clean one's home and keep an apartment tidy or a house spotless. However, according to those who have tried this tip, simply applying it at various times throughout the day is enough to keep a living space consistently tidy with virtually no effort.

This Japanese organizing method is based on the idea that many simple tasks, such as washing breakfast bowls or putting away makeup brushes in the morning, take 60 seconds or less but make all the difference in preventing clutter.

How to apply the one-minute rule at home?

If you've allowed clutter to accumulate in your home, you must of course do a thorough cleaning before you can implement the one-minute rule there. Indeed, this method is mainly for maintaining the tidiness previously achieved.

The Japanese secret to having an apartment that's always neat and tidy is very simple: once your interior is clean and organized, you shouldn't wait until every room is a mess before doing a big weekly cleaning. It's simpler and more efficient to tidy up objects gradually, over very short periods of time.

To put this tip into practice, you also need to start by identifying the areas you want to prioritize for tidying. Since you only have one minute to organize, you should focus your tidying and cleaning efforts on specific areas, for example:
• the area around the sink or bathtub in your bathroom;
• the kitchen counter;
• the drawer of the dresser where you've tossed your socks in a heap.

What are the mistakes to avoid?

To ensure that the one-minute rule truly aids you in your daily life, you must make sure to properly break down the tasks to be done and to not exceed the allotted time, which is 60 seconds for each small household chore.

If you go beyond this time, tidying up may become too time-consuming in your busy schedule. You will quickly become discouraged and revert to square one.

The following tips should help you meet the challenge of tidying or cleaning in a one-minute dash:
• Define the area to be tidied or the task to be accomplished beforehand, such as cleaning the countertop, watering houseplants, or putting away toys in a child's room.

• Keep cleaning supplies handy in each room, such as a multi-purpose cleaner spray or easy-to-use cleaning wipes.

• Act quickly and efficiently. To save time, proceed in order. Be methodical but not perfectionistic so as not to exceed the one-minute deadline.

• Always take a second to admire the result. The satisfaction of having tidied up, even a small area, will encourage you to keep going in the long term. This brief moment is thus very important for maintaining a consistently tidy apartment.

What are the benefits of this method?

The one-minute rule applies the philosophy of kaizen to the realm of tidying and cleaning. In Japanese, the word kaizen means "continuous improvement". This philosophy recommends making small changes every day to improve one's situation in all areas of life.

But beware: as we mentioned earlier, one should not seek perfection! This utopian endeavor would be doomed to failure. Kaizen simply aims to be a little better each day than the day before. In the domain of household chores, "the one-minute rule" will help you have a home that is a bit tidier than the day before, one minute at a time.

This method should remain simple to implement on a daily basis. In fact, even children can participate in this continuous tidying process by learning to put their glass in the dishwasher and their day's clothes in the laundry basket.

Thanks to this tip, you will save time and simplify your daily life. Indeed, it is easier to wipe up a spilled liquid right away rather than scrubbing for several minutes to remove a stain that has set in a few days later...

You might think that this minute of cleaning is not much. But it can truly transform the daily life of people who tend to be overwhelmed by disorder.