The musical “RENT” popularized a very catchy tune and question: How do you measure, measure a year? The numerical answer provided in the song as we all know was “Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes”, but today I want to talk about just a single minute instead and what you can do with it.

As a college student, it is incredibly easy to put tasks of all sizes off. This is fine in the moment for a single thing, but soon enough, the one thing has become many and you don’t know where to start! This is where the Minute Rule comes in!

The “Minute Rule”, created by Gretchen Rubin, is a tool I have been using for a couple of months now to get tasks done that I might have previously dragged around before getting to them. The basic idea of the rule is if you need to do something, and it takes less than a minute to do, then do it right then and there instead of pushing it off. This can be applied to anything: making up your bed, tidying a room in your house, cleaning the bathroom or kitchen sink, taking out the trash, decluttering your desktop, putting away laundry- the list goes on!

The examples I gave were mostly about cleaning and housekeeping, which is where I feel I use the Minute Rule the most! Instead of standing around the kitchen while I make my coffee in the morning, I will fold my laundry or put away the dishes instead. This simple practice makes dealing with tasks as they appear more manageable, and I end up feeling more accomplished by beating the procrastination bug. Give it a try today!

In Sisterhood,

Mardi Traskowsky