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I tried over 20 organizing hacks last year, but this one was my favorite. This is according to Cynthia Lawrence. Here's why the set the stage hack actually works.
As someone who writes about home organization, there's nothing worse than visual clutter. However, while I tried to keep my surfaces and areas clear, it wouldn't be long before they would get untidy again. This year, I made it my mission to try to test viral decluttering hacks to find a method that not only actually worked, but there's one that I would stick to. Ranging from the FO method and quote hushing my home to the viral quote house purge organization hack. House purse. Oh, h house purse. Oh, yeah. a house purse organization act where you simply throw everything into a bag of your choice to carry around the home. But despite the many helpful methods, there was only one organizing hack that really stood the test of time in my home. Not only was it simple and easy, but it also transformed my daily routine. Here's why.
It's called the set the stage rule. Keeping a small kitchen tidy and clutter-free can be a constant struggle at the best of times. And for me, maintaining clear countertops daily felt like an impossible task, especially during cooking. That was until I discovered the set the stage rule. Essentially, the set the stage rule is a straightforward nightly routine. Dedicate just 15 minutes to small organizing tasks. This allows you to focus on small messes with a specific time frame uh and eliminate the stress. Simply set your timer and make it a daily or weekly habit. Coined by Joshua Fields Milbour, Ryan Nicodemus, and TK Coleman of the Minimalists. The key here is to focus on micro habits, meaning one small task in just 15 minutes will be more intentional and eventually lead you to a tidier space. this article. We'll put a full link to the whole article from Tom's Guide in the show notes.
I want to talk to you about this TK for two reasons. One, look, they're finally mentioning you in the articles. Now, TK, >> you know what? If you weren't going to say it, [laughter] if you weren't going to say it, I was like, man, listen, listen, man. How long does this brother? I just talked about brothers making other brothers look good. And I know Cynthia, you're not a brother, but like, thank you for shouting out a brother. This might be the first time we've ever read anything that mentions the minimalist and mention me. I appreciate it. You ain't got to do it, but I appreciate it. >> Yeah, I appreciate it, too. And what I appreciate about this rule is it's something I came up with in my own house because I was tired of waking up the next morning and uh after a regular night and there's still dishes in the dishwasher or in uh the little carff that carries the the the the dishes or there's things on the counter, maybe Ella left a few toys out or there's a blanket on the couch and there's a throw pillow on the floor. And for me, this rule works best in three areas. is the kitchen, the living room, and the bedroom. Why? Well, those are the three areas we tend to spend the most time. And they're also the areas that become magnets for the things that we just leave hanging around because we spend the most time there. And what I didn't like is even as a minimalist, I would have a few things that were out of place. The things that were functional and useful to me became clutter when they were placed somewhere that got in my way. Literally, if I'm stepping on a toy first thing in the morning, you know, there's a Lego in the hallway, [laughter] I'm going out to get coffee. I've done that before. I spilled coffee all over the place >> because I stepped on a toy and >> Hello. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's okay though because I realized, you know what? We need to find a way to deal with this. >> How'd you handle it in real time? >> Um, I think I yelled a profanity, but like out of like, ah, you know, like just stuff in a Lego sucks, right? [laughter] And so what I learned is like, oh, this is the perfect representation of we don't want to get rid of Legos. >> Yeah, >> she still values the Legos, but also I have my own toys as well. I have my own Legos. >> I often sit on a meditation cushion in my living room >> instead of sitting on the couch. And if I leave that out, I can trip on it. And so why don't I just put it back where it goes? So each night, it started out 15 minutes. I'd set a timer and we play a game with the whole family. Me, my wife, the daughter, we would say, "All right, we've got 15 minutes. We're going to clean up as much as we can. We're going to reorganize everything that we need to do in 15 minutes. Well, 15 minutes quickly became 10. 10 minutes became 5. And now it's every night. Last night was 5 minutes. I set a timer. We put the dishes up real quick. Oh, there's a few things on the couch. Who left this on the the dining room table? Ella, can you please pick up the things on the floor in your room? And you recognize when you wake up the next morning, it's so much more peaceful. I don't want to spend 5 minutes in the morning scrambling to put things away. I want peace and calm in my morning. So, the bedroom doesn't have anything that's in the way. I'm just there sleeping. I wake up. The hallway doesn't have anything on the floor. The kitchen doesn't have things that were left out from last night, whether it's old appliances. We put all of our appliances away. Uh we call this no piles rule, by the way. Any any appliance that isn't used every day, it doesn't stay on the counter. It has to have a home in a cabinet or drawer somewhere. [snorts] And the living room is very similar. I don't like to have a bunch of things laying on flat surfaces. So, if there's anything that is on a flat surface, we'll just at the end of the night set the timer. We remove everything and I wake up the next morning and it's just like a [sighs] full body sigh. the the space feels so much more calm and it's a minimalist house regardless, but there's just a few things that get in my way that can interrupt my morning and then that sets my whole day up for like I stepped on that freaking Lego this morning and it was just uh it primes your day for frustration. The opposite of that I think is also true. Yeah, it's amazing how much small changes like that can make in in sort of starting your day off on the right foot and then that just sort of snowballs into a much better probability of a good day. Uh you know, for us, we have certain things that we do in the morning, you know, making le making lemon water for the morning, uh making uh lime water for later in the day. So, there's the slicing of the lemon, slicing of the lime, the using the cutting board, making celery juice, uh all these little different things. And and it's really about a 15minute process, not that long, maybe even less than that with all the things that we do, but it can easily become a 45minute process if we don't set the stage at the end of the night. It's like we set the stage by making sure all the dishes that need to be done are done by the end of the night. So we don't go to bed with all the dishes being done and cleared. Because if you wake up in the morning and you got to start that process by clearing away dishes, it's just a different kind of morning. We make sure the berky's filled with water because if you need water and it's like, "Oh, now I got to fill it and I got to wait." It slows you down and complicates things. We make sure that celery is chopped and celery is cleaned and celery is put away and it's accessible. So all we got to do is retrieve it and put it through the juicer. Little things like that, that's an extra 15 minutes if you got to do all that prep work. And so just taking that time the night before. Even also little things like, hey, in the morning I'm going to go to the office or I'm going to go to the studio. So before I go to bed, I'm going to take the computer off the table, you know, pull the cord out of it. I'm going to put that in the bag, pack the bag, position that by the door. All those little things when you don't have to do them in the morning, it's like you wake up and it's just easy like Sunday morning, la. and you just do your thing and you get out. Even my leaving time, when I leave at 5:45, I got an hour and 20 minute drive. I'm cruising the whole time. There's little stop and go. That's a different morning than if I leave at 6:15 or later. And it's 2 and 1/2 hours. It's stop and go the whole time. I'm already worn out by the time I get here. >> That's right. >> You know what I mean? >> And so what the question I asked then, what are the things that going to wear me out tomorrow? I'm already worn out tonight and these don't they don't require a lot of celebration. Putting the dishes away. It's not like this super intellectual task. It's just something I know needs to be done. Having my daughter pick up any toys that she left out or anything that she just has like on the floor, just a bottle of lotion or something. Just pick it up. Okay. And that does a few things. One is I don't have to then inject a whole bunch of other decluttering or organizing tactics throughout the day because once you get to a baseline where you feel good about the things I have, I just need to make sure the things I have aren't getting in the way of the things that I'm doing. And so the question I'm asking myself here is what don't I want to deal with tomorrow morning? >> Well, I don't want to deal with cleaning stuff up. I don't want to deal with organizing. Well, why? Oh, because I prefer to read in the mornings. I prefer to write in the mornings and I prefer to exercise in the mornings. I'm making room for the things that I prefer to do. If I just spend 15 minutes or for me it's 5 minutes now each night priming the next day so I can actually do what I want to do. It lowers my stress levels. And in the morning I wake up, it's so much calmer than if I had to immediately open up a to-do list and start tackling items on it. My dad would always say the phrase growing up, you're too busy not to do that. You're too busy not to make the extra effort. You're too busy not to plan. You're too busy not to write that down. Too busy not to clean up. And so there are these moments where at the end of the night, we say things like, I don't feel like doing the dishes. Uh, I don't feel like straightening things out. Or how about in the morning? I don't feel like getting up an hour early. And I always ask myself, if you don't feel like it now, how you going to feel when you have to do it in the morning? M >> I don't feel like getting up and getting out an hour earlier, but I really don't feel like being in the car for 2 and 1/2 hours. I don't feel like doing the dishes tonight, but I really don't feel like doing it in the morning with the other stuff that I have to do. So sometimes even when it doesn't feel good, it's going to feel so much better to experience the benefits of that in [music] the morning. 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