The “1-Minute Rule” Helped Me Clean Smarter—Not Harder

Keeping a clean and tidy house can feel like an endless job, especially when you have kids. If you don’t stay vigilant, messes pile up faster than a ripe avocado turns bad. But the one-minute rule might be just the strategy you need to take the weight of daily domestic duties off your shoulders.

As someone with a never-ending mental checklist of home to-dos, I decided to apply this buzzy method over a few days. Here’s exactly what the one-minute rule is, how testing it went for me, and who’s a good candidate for the rule.

What Is the 1-Minute Cleaning Rule?

The rule, which is commonly attributed to author Gretchen Rubin, is simple: When you come across a mess or something out of place, and it can be taken care of in a minute or less, you do it right then. The goal is to stop punting small tasks—like carrying shoes upstairs, wiping the table after a meal, or fluffing the throw pillows. Instead of letting these little things pile up, you knock them out on the spot, keeping your home consistently clean with less effort.

What Happened When I Tried the 1-Minute Cleaning Rule

I’m not naturally tidy. It takes discipline for me to stick to a cleaning routine, but I do it anyway, because clutter spikes my cortisol. (It does for most people!) So the idea of breaking up chores into 60-second increments? Very appealing. I doubted it would actually work, but I was game to try.

The Process

First up: breakfast dishes. It was just a few plates and utensils. I set a timer on my smartwatch to see how much I could get done in one minute. I got halfway through before the timer went off. Miscalculation. But my hands were already wet, the sponge already soapy—so I restarted the timer and kept going. 

Then, three minutes later, everything was done, including scrubbing dried peanut butter off a knife, washing down the sink, and wiping the counters. Not bad!

Riding that small victory, I put the rule into action again after my afternoon workout. Normally, I drop my sneakers and gear beside the bed and deal with it “later.” (I’m a big fan of “later.”) But I set the timer and cleaned up quickly—so quickly, I actually had five seconds to spare. “Was that so hard?” I asked myself. Turns out, doing a quick favor for future-you feels pretty great. This must be how people who live in pristine homes feel all of the time! Such peace, such serenity. No rogue dumbbells to step around while moving about their days.  

That night, while my husband cleaned up our daughter after dinner, I tackled our meal leftovers that were still on the stove and counter. No timer this time. I just moved confidently, knowing it wouldn’t take long to pop food into containers for the fridge. I finished before my girl was out of her high chair.

The Real Game-Changer

The next day was chaos: a school board meeting, workout, snack duty, toddler-wrangling, and work deadlines. At one point, my daughter’s toy bin and blocks were scattered across the living room. I stepped over them repeatedly—until the fourth or fifth time, when I finally remembered my new “cleaning silver bullet.” I set the timer: 34 seconds. That’s it. I had spent more time ignoring the mess than it took to clean it.

It was another lightbulb moment: What else could I tackle in a minute? If I could do something small in 60 seconds, what about five minutes? Or 30? While extended stretches of cleaning go against the rule’s spirit, it definitely helped reframe how I think about time and tasks.

Final Takeaway

Honestly, the hardest part of this challenge was remembering to pause and ask, “How long would this take me?” My advice: Pick a few small tasks—nothing major—and start with a timer. You might find that something you thought required 20 minutes takes five. And something you thought would take five? Done in one.

That’s the biggest thing I learned: I was drastically underestimating how much I could accomplish in just a minute. I used to freeze when faced with a mess, waiting until I had a big enough block of time to “deal with it.” That’s how things piled up. But now, I handle small messes right away, and the end-of-day cleaning marathons my husband and I used to do are so much shorter. If that isn’t motivation, I don’t know what is. 

So the next time I see a full hamper, a sticky counter, a mess of mail, or a gallery of fingerprints on the fridge, I’ll stop and take care of it. Because now I know—it probably won’t take more than a minute.