There’s a great post by Gretchen Rubin on her blog “The Happiness Project” on her “one-minute rule”.
If you live in chaos, most of the disorganisation isn’t caused by failing to do big things; it’s caused by failing to do thousands of tiny little things.It’s very simple: I must do any task that can be finished in one minute. Hang up my coat, read a letter and toss it, fill in a form, answer an email, note down a citation, pick up my phone messages, file a paper, put a dish in the dishwasher, replenish the diaper supply by the changing table, put the magazines away…and so on.