If you don’t read this blog post til the end, I want you to take this with you:
“You can do anything for 5 minutes”.
Do I need to say anything else?
Yes, there are studies and there are reasons behind, but the bottom line is, whenever you find yourself procrastinating and unwilling to do something, setting a timer for 5 minutes and starting to do that task will make all the difference. Try it for something you’ve been putting off for a while. 5 minutes. I’ll wait for you…
Ok, how did it go?
Easy, but not simple!
This is one of the predominant rules in the productivity world. Forcing yourself to start and do a task which you have been putting off for a while will inform your brain that you actually can do that task and that there is nothing difficult about it. The most painful thing to do is to start.
As my lovely yoga teacher (a guru in the internet yoga world), Adriene Mishler says “The hardest part is to show up”, everything else is a piece of cake 🙂
But what do the studies say?
For those of you who want to read facts and research, you’d be pleased to know that this idea comes from what in chemistry is called the activation energy, the energy required to get the process going. Once the activation energy is on, everything else kind of takes care of itself.
This is similar to the process we are talking about. Someone calls it the 5 seconds rule, the moment you decide to do something despite your mind telling you otherwise. I like to call it the 5 minutes rule. I can do anything for 5 minutes. And so can you.
So much more can be done when limiting ourselves to the 5 minutes rule. I think the consistency of me sending out my newsletters and posting blogposts on the website, all are activations of that energy. Start with small steps and you’ll see big results.
You can do anything for 5 minutes.
What do you want to do? If you want to have some accountability, click on the link below and share your commitment to the 5 minutes rule!
I’ll be on the other side.