Stop Clutter from Coming Back with the One-Minute Rule
Happier with Gretchen Rubin
Lemonada Media
4.7 • 13.2K Ratings
🗓️ 11 April 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
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Summary
The One-Minute Rule is one of the most popular organization hacks ideas we've ever shared—and if you've used it, you know why. But over the years it's inspired a few other additional rules that are just as useful, including one that kept Elizabeth's closet floor clean for the first time in years. In this episode we bring them all together.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What if the life you built online suddenly became real and completely out of your control? |
| 0:06.8 | In Carol Claire Burke's debut novel yesteryear, Natalie is a tradwife influencer with a picture |
| 0:12.8 | perfect life and millions of followers until she wakes up in 1855 and everything she's been |
| 0:18.9 | romanticizing becomes something she has to survive. |
| 0:22.4 | Carol Claire Burke is also the co-host of the podcast, Diabolical Lies, and readers are calling this |
| 0:28.1 | book impossible to put down with a twist that's completely off the rails in the best way. |
| 0:34.0 | Yesteryear is available now in print, audio, and e-book. |
| 0:49.6 | Music Yesterday Year is available now in print, audio, and e-book. Hello, we're here for more happier, a podcast where we get happier. |
| 0:53.8 | Hey, Elizabeth. Hi, Gritch. Today we're revis for more happier, a podcast where we get happier. Hey, Elizabeth. |
| 0:55.0 | Hi, Gritch. |
| 0:56.4 | Today, we're revisiting one of the most useful strategies that I have found for dealing with clutter in everyday life. |
| 1:03.2 | This is the one-minute rule. |
| 1:05.1 | It is truly one of the most popular ideas I've ever shared, and for good reason. |
| 1:09.5 | If you use it consistently, it really does |
| 1:12.2 | stop clutter before it piles up. It also inspired a few other practical rules in the same vein, |
| 1:19.3 | including one grutch that kept my closet floor clean for the first time in years. So we'll get to |
| 1:26.4 | those later in the episode, but first let's start with the one-minute |
| 1:29.6 | rule itself, what it is, why it works, and how to actually use it. |
| 1:40.5 | Yeah, so Gretchen, we talked about the one-minute rule in our very first episode. |
| 1:46.2 | Number one. |
| 1:47.7 | But it may be new to some of our listeners who have not heard episode one. |
| 1:53.3 | Also, because this is such a good tip, we decided we want to remind everyone about it, |
... |
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