The 1-3-5 Rule Will Help You Organize Your Home for Good

As a professional organizer, my ears perk up anytime someone mentions the words ‘declutter’, ‘organize’, or ‘tidy,' in a conversation about productivity. That’s because I know how closely-related being organized is to being productive, and it’s a concept that’s not always easily grasped. And I get it—it seems silly to put time and energy into creating a Pinterest-perfect pantry with matching containers and fancy labels when you’ve got an overflowing inbox, an overbooked calendar, and looming deadlines.

But home organization is less about perfection (or the illusion of it) and more about having working systems, not overfilling your space, and putting things back where they belong. It’s about creating habits and effectively prioritizing, which is precisely what many productivity books, podcast hosts, coaches, and gurus teach.

The 1-3-5 rule is an established and valuable productivity technique that's often used in work settings—but it can just as easily be used to tackle the clutter in your home! Even if you’re already familiar with using the method in the workspace, you’ll learn how it can translate to your personal space to make getting organized a realistic goal.

 

What Is the 1-3-5 Rule?

While it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where this 'rule' originated, it’s commonly used in the corporate world to increase time and project management. The technique requires you to sort your tasks into one of three categories: Large, medium, and small. From there, you should aim to complete a specific amount in each category per day. Using the 1-3-5 rule, your ideal day could look like this:

• First, complete one large task that will require most of your energy and focus.
• Next, work on three medium tasks that need to get done, but aren’t as difficult or time-consuming as the first.
• Lastly, tick off five small tasks that will take little time and concentration.

It's said that completing your tasks in the 1-3-5 structure is the key to most people's successful and productive days. The one large task moves the needle forward at a peak time in the day, the three medium tasks feel easier after accomplishing the first one, and the five small tasks are quick to check off the list as energy levels begin to dip. This ensures you achieve everything you set out to during any given day while maximizing your attention span. More importantly, it forces you to prioritize your goals and put your time and energy into the things that really matter.

 

How to Apply the 1-3-5 Rule to Home Organization

Because decluttering and organizing involve tasks of varying size and complexity, it’s actually very simple to utilize the 1-3-5 rule to get your home in order. The first step is always to identify your priorities. Spending time labeling snacks in the pantry when you never fail to find what you’re looking for seems low on the list. On the other hand, if you’re always misplacing your keys (and, subsequently, late to work), know there’s a time-sensitive document buried somewhere in that paper pile, or you need to turn the spare bedroom into a nursery before your due date, now you have tangible goals to work on. It’s up to you to determine if installing a key hook in the entryway, sorting through and organizing paperwork, and clearing out and setting up a space for your impending newborn falls into the small, medium, or large task bucket.

Before showing you an example of breaking organizing tasks down using the 1-3-5 Rule, I want to give a couple of caveats. First, some home projects are so large that it would be unreasonable to assume you can finish them in a day (let alone complete three medium and five small tasks afterward). For example, it’s taken me, my team of organizers, and a few days to declutter and organize garages that have been neglected for decades. If a space becomes messy over a period of time, don’t expect to snap your fingers and reverse it in a day. Instead, you can break a big organizing project into smaller steps while still using the 1-3-5 rule.

The second caveat—and this applies to using the 1-3-5 rule in any area—is that it’s OK to be flexible about your goals depending on what life throws at you. Your intention may be to transition your closet from winter to spring this weekend. But if a late-season snowstorm is predicted for your area, you can push that big task back and choose another one to focus on for that day. The idea is to stay on top of your goals and tackle them in the best order.

 

How to Use the 1-3-5 Rule to Declutter

Remember, something deemed medium by others might feel small to you and vice versa. The more you practice the 1-3-5 method for organizing your home, the better you’ll get at determining the size of your tasks in relation to how you’ll handle them. Plus, the more organized you get, the quicker you’ll get things done (i.e., decluttering the junk drawer can be downgraded from large to medium to eventually small after you’ve done it a few times).

If you were to spend a day decluttering your home and organizing your space using the 1-3-5 rule, it could look a little something like this:

One large task

Sorting, decluttering, and reorganizing the pantry.

 

Three medium tasks

Tackling the mail, tossing old beauty products, setting up a drop zone for daily essentials.

 

Five small tasks

 

 

Clearing trash from your purse, putting away a load of towels, emptying the dish strainer, picking up dog or baby toys from the floor, alphabetizing the spice jars.

 

How to Apply the 1-3-5 Rule to a Larger Project

In regards to a universally large project, like organizing a cluttered garage, try dedicating multiple days to the task, while assigning large, medium, and small tasks to each day. Here's an example of the first day:

One large task: Pulling out the contents from half of the garage and sorting those contents into categories (i.e., sports equipment, tools, garden, etc.).

Three medium tasks: Going through categories to decide whether you’re keeping or donating items, loading the car with donations, dropping them off at your local donation center

Five small tasks: Sweeping the empty half of the garage clean, wiping down shelving systems and inside empty bins, storing pared-down categories into bins, labeling the bins, taking out the trash

The next day, repeat the process with new large, medium, and small tasks until you complete your goal of having an organized space. 

 

 

Sources:

• All photos used in this blogpost are sourced from the internet, and the rights belong to their respective owners
• Cornetta, M. (2024, August 25). The 1-3-5 Rule Will Help You Organize Your Home for Good. Retrieved from https://www.bhg.com/organizing-with-1-3-5-rule-8694935