As a work-from-home, stay-at-home mom, I am always trying to find ways to optimize cleaning for our household. One technique I have been reading about recently is called the “one touch rule”. When I looked up the term, I quickly realized I had occasionally been using the one touch rule for a while without even realizing it! The past couple weeks I have been using one touch rule tips more intentionally, and it has made such a huge difference!
If you are here to find out what the one touch rule is, you’re in the right place. In addition to defining what this term is, I will provide you with examples and tips for using the one touch rule to make cleaning and organizing your home much easier!
What is the One Touch Rule?
A phrase that can be used to sum up the one touch rule is: “Don’t put it down, put it away.”
The one touch rule is a term coined by Ann Gomez, a productivity consultant of Clear Concept Inc.. Although Gomez created the one touch rule as a way to improve productivity in business, you can easily apply this technique to household cleaning and organization. If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense! After all, cleaning and organizing are a type of management for the household. Home management shares a lot in common with management that needs to take place in any other workplace.
In essence, the one touch rule states that you should complete a task the first time you touch it. You want to avoid having to touch an item or task a second time if you can help it. The idea is that you 1) address a task promptly, and 2) prevent unfinished tasks from building up. When executed well, the one touch rule can stop growing mountains of clutter in their tracks and can help you avoid dealing with an overwhelming number of unfinished tasks.
What Does the One Touch Rule Look Like at Home?
One of my favorite sayings is, “A place for everything, everything in its place”. I think this saying is a great representation of how the one touch rule applies in the home.
The other day, my husband got home and set his wallet on the kitchen island, his keys on the bar, and our toddler’s dirty socks on the entryway counter. Does this follow the one touch rule? Not at all! In order to apply the one touch rule, he would need to set items in their “home” or as close to home as they can get the first time. What would following the one touch rule look like for my husband in this scenario? It would look like setting the wallet in a designated drawer in his office, hanging the keys on the entryway hook, and putting our toddler’s dirty socks in his designated hamper. The goal is that those items won’t have to be touched and moved again (or unnecessarily) once they are set down.
To apply the one touch rule, you’ll need to replace the bad habit of setting items anywhere with the good habit of setting items at home or as close to home as possible.
But I’m Constantly Interrupted!
I get it. As a parent of an infant and toddler, I completely understand that interruptions are inevitable. Baby starts crying? Drop everything in your tracks. Toddler saying “mommy, mommy, mommy” and constantly asking for help? Forget what you’re even doing and leave whatever you’re working on in some random place. You may think interruptions are basically the antithesis of the one touch rule.
However, the one touch rule is actually a powerful tool to use, especially in these kinds of situations. If you have habits and systems in place that are inspired by the one touch rule, you can tackle daily cleaning and organization better than you would otherwise. Building habits using the one touch rule will help you automatically address daily cleaning/organizing before it builds up, despite those interruptions!
The key is to first put in some time to establish a strong foundation for which to build habits that embody the one touch rule. In order to do this, you want to set your home up with appropriate storage and systems. Read on to find examples and tips for how to set your home up for successfully implementing the one touch rule.
Tips for Setting Your Home Up for the One Touch Rule: Storage & Systems
1. Storage
A cornerstone of the one touch rule for cleaning and organizing is that each item has a designated “home” or storage place. Sometimes you need to create that home before being able to successfully apply the one touch rule. For example, one storage solution I created is a small white mail crate to set non-urgent mail in. Some other examples are the key hook we have by the garage entryway, the hampers for each person, labelled bins for folded laundry, and designated baskets for specific toys.
Once storage solutions are in place, no orphan items should be floating around! Every item should have an official home/home(s)!
2. Systems
After your items have an established “home”, they may or may not end up in those homes. What will help them end up where they need to be? Systems!
Systems are the foundation of habits. They are basically rules to assure a seamless flow of actions to get an item from one place to another. The goal of these systems is to shape daily habits that help you automatically bring items back to their home(s).
An Example of Storage and Systems
One example of a system is the mail system we use at our house. Where we live, we have community mail boxes a little walk up from our house. Just behind the mail boxes is a bench and trash can. When I check our mail, I first bring the mail to the bench next to the trash can. After I look trough the mail pile, I immediately toss all junk mail. I also toss any excess packaging so I don’t have to deal with it later. Next, I bring the mail inside and decide if there’s anything with high priority. I set the high-priority mail in my bag to take to my workspace or deliver it to my husband’s office. I leave the rest of the mail that isn’t urgent in the mail crate at our garage entryway.
Systems: Trashing junk mail immediately, sorting high-priority mail from non-urgent mail
Storage/Homes: Mail box, mail area trash can, mail crate, upstairs/downstairs bag (more on this later in the “For Homes with Multiple Levels” section), office/workspace
If the mail ends up anywhere else besides these designated storage/home areas, then I should immediately get it to its appropriate home based on our mail system.
For Homes with Multiple Levels
Do you live in a two-story home or other multi-level home? If so, it sometimes just doesn’t make sense to go up/downstairs to deliver a single item to its designated “home”. This is why I have an upstairs/downstairs bag. You can use a regular bag like I do, or a tote, a caddy, a basket. Anything that you can easily carry items upstairs and downstairs in works! Whenever I find an item that needs to go to a different level, I will throw it in the bag. Next time I go upstairs or downstairs, I grab the bag and then apply the one-touch rule!
For example, if I am bringing my toddler’s book inside from the car, I can throw it in the bag. While the item stays in that holding place, I can focus on finishing up everything I need to do downstairs. When I finally go back upstairs, I can carry the bag up and pull the book from it. Once in hand, I can put the book immediately in my toddler’s book basket or book shelf.
If you use this one touch rule tip, make sure to always have the upstairs/downstairs bag on the same floor or level as you!
Quick Tips for Getting Started with the One Touch Rule
I hope you found these tips for using the one touch rule helpful! If you are wanting to get started with the one touch rule, start small! Ask yourself where you would benefit most by having this rule in place. Perhaps pick the laundry room, the kitchen, the play room, or another room that could use a one touch system. Then assign storage or “homes” for key items. After that, create an efficient system to use every time you engage with relevant items. The goal is to make sure your items are always at or on their way “home”. Over time, you’ll develop daily habits from those systems that will contribute to a cleaner and clutter free home with much less effort!
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