friday reflections – feb 26

Today I’d like to tell you about the one-minute rule. I read about it recently and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m drawn to “life hacks” or, put another way, ideas and techniques for improving time management and efficiency.

The one-minute rule is really simple. It goes like this: if a task will take you less than one minute to complete (refilling the bird feeder, washing the knife that can’t go in the dishwasher, hanging up that coat), do it now. Don’t wait. Just get it done.

I started doing this recently and I don’t know why it feels so good, but it does. I think it probably feels gratifying because productivity feels gratifying. It feels good to check things off a list. Or maybe it just feels good to know that I’m not procrastinating. Probably both. Either way, it’s felt like a game-changer to me the past few weeks.

Does it matter that I wash the knife in the sink at 2pm instead of 7pm? Does it, in actuality, save me any time? I don’t know. Probably not. But it feels good to come downstairs after an afternoon of writing and start dinner prep in a clean kitchen. And it feels good not to trip on the coat that was draped along the stairs on my way down. Something about getting something done instead of putting it off and putting it off and putting it off — especially when it has to get done eventually — feels good. And anything that feels good is a win in my book. Well, not anything, I suppose, but you get my drift.