I tried the ‘1% rule’ cleaning method — and this tiny change has made a huge difference to my home
It might sound strange, but if you search the ‘1% rule’, you’ll find a book by author and coach, Tommy Baker, who popularized the concept as a journey of personal growth. The idea is you improve your life on a daily basis, by 1%. So, if you start making minor changes each day, over time you’ll see a huge progress in your life.
While that’s great for your own performance, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t apply to any area of your life. As a Homes writer, that meant trying it out as a cleaning and decluttering method. And it turns out using the 1% rule for positive change within the home is a bit of a no-brainer. Here’s how it works.
What is the ‘1% rule’?
As I briefly explained, the ‘1% rule’ asks you to make incremental changes on a daily basis to have a positive effect on whatever you’re doing.
For exercising, that could be doing more steps. For cooking, it could be learning one new recipe. When it comes to cleaning and decluttering, it’s asking yourself: “What can I do to make my home 1% better?”
The best part about the concept is that it’s not asking too much of you every day. So, instead of being overwhelmed by how much there is to do, you’re asked to do a little, and over time, that daily effort will make a big difference.
How can the bedroom be 1% better? Putting the laundry away. How can the kitchen be 1% cleaner? Wipe down the dirty sideboards. It’s similar to the ‘drip drop’ cleaning method that asks you do to little and often.
In theory, it sounds like an easy task. In practice, I had to see how it really felt to do just 1% around my home.
Trying out the ‘1% rule’
When cleaning, I often find that I’m immediately overwhelmed by how much there is to do that I don’t want to do any of it at all. A few days later, it feels like I didn’t make any positive change at all.
So, when the 1% rule asked me only to do a tiny bit of cleaning, I was quite happy to do just that. If anything, I actually found myself wanting to do more because it all felt a lot more manageable.
I wrestled with whether I should rein it in and save my 1% for the next day, until I realized it wasn’t a bad thing to get ahead of the game. But, only as long as I still did 1% the next day and so on.
I set myself a goal to adopt the ‘1% rule’ for one whole week to see how I felt by the end of it. I did a little everyday and, having committed to it, I can say that I can easily see myself carrying on – forming a new habit.
The ‘1% rule’ is definitely about shifting your mindset to teach yourself that by making simple improvements and avoiding burning out or getting bored by tackling everything in one go (or not tackling it at all), it’s the consistency that is key.
If I found something in a room that needed to be put away, I did it. If I walked past my daughter’s craft table and saw it was becoming overwhelmed with mess that even she wouldn’t sit there anymore, I sorted through it. Each little task made a difference not only to the way my home looked, but also in the way it made me feel.
Of course, with any habit, it’s a dedication to commit to it every day. But, instead of being hard on myself when I forget to do it one day, I either do 2% the next day, or just started over because doing something was better than nothing.
To get a sense of achievement, you don’t have to do everything all at once. In fact, the ‘1% rule’ gave me permission to do what felt like the bare minimum. But over time, I realized I was being more proactive and in turn my house was getting tidier without really doing much at all.
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