The year started off really badly in the anti-procrastination area. At work in particular, I’ve been putting off even the simplest of tasks, not to mention getting seriously started on several projects I’m supposed to drive.
Then I stumbled across, somewhere on the world wide web, that good ol’ definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Whereas the universal validity of the statement is questionable (why would I bother to exercise if it were true?), it can certainly be applied to my struggle against procrastination. Nothing I’ve tried so far has been anywhere near succeeding in setting me off on the virtuous path of efficiency and self-control.
Hence the decision to try something different, this time a little trick borrowed from FlyLady. This very wise lady insists, over and over again, that “you can do anything for 15 minutes”. The trick here, of course, is that the permission to stop after 15 minutes of doing something perceived as unpleasant will break down your resistance to starting at all. And more often than not, once the work is started, one finds that it wasn’t so bad after all and is happy to keep going until the task is completed (which incidentally very often is less than 15 minutes).
I’ve very successfully applied this principle to keeping my son’s bedroom tidy. Since 15 minutes is still a bit overwhelming for a 7-year-old, we tidy his room for two minutes only, every evening before he goes to bed. The rule is clear; when the two minutes are up, we get to stop, no matter the state of the room. The result has amazed both of us. The regularity of the exercise keeps his room almost tidy at all times, and many evenings we don’t even need the two minutes to finish completely!
As it turns out, 15 minutes can be a bit overwhelming even for a 40-year-old, when said 40-year-old is an ace procrastinator. I hence decided to start the working day today by spending a minimum of five minutes only on each of two tasks I’ve been putting off: Answering the numerous new year’s greetings I’ve received over the last couple of weeks, and getting started on a web design proposal.
And indeed: the greetings were all done in two five-minute sessions with a couple of minutes to spare, and once I got started on the web design work, I enjoyed it so much that I spent the rest of the morning plugging away at it.
Morale: Apply this simple tactic every morning when I sit down to work. I don’t have to do anything else, just spend a minimum of five minutes every morning on two dreaded tasks. Now let’s see where that takes me!
The next 40 years 