Clutter Relief —
It All Begins With You

And maybe you don’t want to hear that. After all, you’re looking for clutter relief, not some kind of personal-development project. Right? Chances are, though, that you and your clutter are like Siamese Twins: joined together until something happens to separate you.

My money says you will, or at least you can, but you’re the one who plays. What say, then, that you play a little rough? Get a little mean with your clutter—maybe even kick some ass.

How? Every way you can think of, but here are two tools that I particularly like: the “one-minute rule” and the "finite increment." Actually, these are really two sides of a single coin, differing only in degree. On this page, we'll look mainly at the one-minute rule, which comes courtesy of Gretchen Rubin and her wonderful blog, "The Happiness Project."

The Rule
Here’s how the one-minute rule works if you decide to follow it. Whenever you see something that needs to be done and can be done in one minute or so, ya' gotta do it. And that’s it: that’s the rule, which would lend itself nicely to clutter control.

If you think one minute’s not tough enough, kick up to the “two-minute rule.” Much beyond that, though, you may risk diluting its effectiveness. The power of this rule stems at least in part from its short duration, which tends to encounter minimal resistance.

Even busy ole you can probably spare one minute to do a single task—or even two minutes. Then you go back to whatever you were doing.

In essence, the one-minute rule marries “just do one thing” to a stop-watch. Click here to see how just one thing can lead to clutter relief in the kitchen. Naturally, the one-minute rule can work there as well.

Small-Step Magic
If you’ve clicked around this site, you already know how high we are on small steps. In fact, they’re the very essence of "just do one thing"—and the one-minute rule, for that matter. Plus, they nearly always work IF you take them. They’re not dramatic, they don’t really support the grand gesture, but they’re about as effective as anything out there.

You want some clutter relief? Then just do one thing that feels like it clears out your space even a little. Purge one shelf, and then organize what’s left. Clear out and organize your herb/spice drawer, rack, or shelf. Sort one drawer. Tackle one shelf of a bookcase. Figure out how to organize your bills.

When you complete that first step, which may take longer than a single session, do one more thing at your earliest opportunity. If the next step would take but a minute or two, do it at that moment!

And there you have it, two recipes for clutter relief: the one-minute rule and the finite increment—both of them employing the small-steps approach. If you were looking for a dramatic solution, you may be quite disappointed with what’s been offered. (We don't do much drama here.)

But if you can reorient your expectations, you'll see that you’ve just stumbled upon a magic bullet. Unfortunately, it’s also such a modest “bullet” that it tends to be both overlooked and undervalued. I hope you won’t make that same mistake, because small steps consistently taken could help you kick clutter right out of your life. Now, that's relief!

[Click to return from Clutter Relief to Just Do One Thing.]