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Personality
The Secret to Making Life Easier
How the 1-Step Rule can transform your life.
Posted March 16, 2021 Reviewed by Ekua Hagan
As an organizer and personality-type expert, people often ask me if I could only give one piece of organizational advice to someone, what would it be? Naturally, after a decade-plus of organizing clients and writing a book on the subject, I've got more than one piece of advice. But, whenever I'm hit with this query, my one gold nugget of advice is always the same: Use the simple “1-Step Rule."
The 1-Step Rule is the secret to successfully organizing anything. It also eliminates a lot of organizational battles between different personality types and the stress that goes hand in hand with those struggles. Personally, what is great about the 1-Step Rule is that it tacks closely to the age-old KISS Principle or "Keep it simple stupid." This advice doesn't reinvent the wheel but rather implements a time-tested great idea into new settings.
What the KISS Principle Is
KISS is a design principle created in the U.S. Navy in 1960 and attributed to an aircraft engineer named Kelly Johnson. The KISS principle is that systems work best when they're simple instead of complicated. The story goes that Johnson gave a team of design engineers a bunch of tools and challenged them to design a jet aircraft that an average mechanic in the field could repair under combat conditions using only those bunch of tools.
Now with the actual KISS principle, the "stupid" refers to the relationship between the way things break and the sophistication required to repair them, i.e., it's not saying someone is stupid. A military jet aircraft that can't be easily repaired by an average mechanic under combat conditions is pretty much useless. Well, so are home or office organizational systems that are so complex that the average person isn't going to adhere to them.
Organizational systems need to be easy enough for anyone in a household or office to follow and maintain. Create systems that, no matter whether someone is naturally messy or tidy, they'll be able to follow. This is why every system we set up for clients is always as simple as it can be within the parameters of our clients' aesthetic preferences.
Why the 1-Step Rule Works
The 1-Step Rule is that whenever feasible, winnow down any organization system you have to as close to one step as possible. The fewer steps a system requires, the easier the system is to use and maintain. The easier a system is to use and maintain, the more likely you'll stay organized. Simpler systems also increase the likelihood that others — especially the naturally messier amongst us — will adhere to them.
The reason we say "as close to one step" as possible is that it's not always possible — or wise — to winnow something down to one step. For example, cold food storage in a fridge is a three-step process. You have to open the fridge, put your item away and then close the fridge door. Obviously, if we eliminated the fridge doors, this would be an easier storage system. But, it would no longer be cold food storage. Therefore, cold food storage remains three steps.
As a different example, take the ubiquitous laundry storage system: a hamper with a lid. Like cold food storage, putting dirty clothes in a hamper is also a three-step process. You lift up the lid, put dirty clothes in, and then close the lid. But in this case, if we eliminate the lid from this laundry storage system, it doesn't ruin this system like removing fridge doors would. Removing one step — the lid — makes this organization system simpler to use. Even more importantly, removing the hamper lid also prevents anyone from putting clothes on top of a hamper's lid and rendering the hamper semi-useless.
How to Keep It Simple Stupid
Applying the 1-Step Rule is an iterative process. There are two ways to go about it. First, whenever you encounter any organizational system, ask yourself whether there is a way to eliminate a step. The answer is often, "Yes" even for systems that you consider functional. The second way to go about it is to think about things that drive you crazy at home or the office. When something is driving you nuts, it's usually because the system is too complex.
One complaint we often hear from clients is, "How can I get my [spouse, child, teen] to hang up their coat!?" Putting a coat away in a coat closet is a six-step process: Take off your coat, open the closet door, search for a free hanger, grab hanger, put coat on a hanger, hang it up, close the door. There are a few one-Step solutions here. Buying more hangers or getting rid of unworn coats eliminates the search step. But, you could also buy and mount a few hooks on the back of the door or a wall nearby and make what was a six-step process now a two- to four-step process.
The genius behind the 1-Step Rule is that implementing it isn't some monumental task. Often, the solutions are as simple as ditching a lid on a hamper per the above example, buying extra hangers for a coat closet, or making sure there are hooks nearby to easily drape clothes. Yet, with each small change, life — and organizing it — gets easier and easier. Life isn't always easy but organizing it should be.
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