Home Home Organization This Cleaning Tip Will Make You Happier Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, wants to help you spiffy up your home. By Perri Ormont Blumberg Perri Ormont Blumberg Perri Ormont Blumberg is a writer with a particular interest in news, travel, food, country music, and commerce. She holds a B.A. in psychology from Columbia University and is also a culinary school graduate from the Natural Gourmet Institute. She was previously a senior staff writer at Southern Living on Southern Living's News Team. Her work has also appeared in the New York Post, Men's Journal, Architectural Digest, Robb Report, Rolling Stone, and many others. Her goal is to visit every state in America, and all the better if she can catch a Dave Matthews Band concert in each one (with 200 shows under her belt, she's well on her way). She'll never turn down a bloody mary or yoga class. Got a story lead? Tweet her @66PerriStreet. Southern Living's editorial guidelines Updated on June 27, 2022 Share Tweet Pin Email Photo: Westend61/Getty Images Sorry, Internet, this will not be the year I Marie Kondo my life. But everyone has time for a quick cleaning tip that takes about a minute, right? Right. That's why I enjoyed reading this sage advice from Gretchen Rubin's new book, Outer Order, Inner Calm, on lifestyle site PureWow: "Do any [cleaning] task that can be finished in less than one minute, without delay," Rubin, who also wrote the New York Times best-selling book, The Happiness Project, pens in her new book. "Hang up a coat, read a letter and toss it, put a document in a file, throw away a pen that doesn't work, put the toothpaste back in the medicine cabinet and close the door." Iterations of this "60-second rule" have appeared in previous pieces of Rubin's work and you can also apply the ethos to tasks beyond cleaning. Write a check, send that email, water those herbs on your window sill...these are just a few of the many things you can check off a to-do less in under a minute flat. WATCH: 10 Shortcuts to an Organized Home In fact, after a week or so of employing this method, you may be riding such a high that you discover this will be the year you Marie Kondo your life, after all. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit