I thank you for clicking the link to read this article and one of the first excuses that you may have before even continuing reading it is that you will read this article later. You may be getting that excuse consciously or unconsciously, but I would try to write this article as short as possible, describing this awesome way that maybe can cure this disease that sometimes affects all of us. I have been using it and I can say that it has been very effective in stopping the delay of doing the things that I had to do and start acting instead.
I have learned this from James Clear, but I decided to write this article in order to make this method more famous, by also linking it with other references, and to also remind myself about the benefits from it. Without continuing this introduction endlessly, let’s jump right into it. But, please be aware that although it can sound really simple, but you should use it in order to get the benefits, because it is not enough just to read about it.
2 minute method
We can approximately predict the duration of the tasks that we should do and all of them can be done in less than 2 minutes, or in a longer period of time. And if it takes less than 2 minutes to do, then do it now. You read that well. Whether it’s replying a short email, cleaning up your desk, etc. do it right now. We waste a lot of time first by just understanding that we should reply or that we should clean the desk, and then we wait for a better moment to act, but why not replying immediately or removing those unnecessary papers, and save us a lot of time and energy? If it takes more than 2 minutes, then just start it.
“Eighty percent of success is showing up.” – Woody Allen
It is wonderful that a lot of things could be done by simply starting to do them, instead of fooling ourselves with different possible scenarios about the difficulties and the possibilities of failure. As the above quote says, if you simply start and try to focus into the task, you will find yourself with the desire to continue on. So just start and put a lot of attention into it, and it’s more likely that you will end up completing that task more easily than you have thought before starting it. Instead of waiting a perfect moment to start studying about your exam, just start reviewing the notes that you have been taking. Chances are that you will continue to learn for a few more minutes. If you are waiting to start a workout routine at the start of the new month, just start doing some pushups and sit-ups at your house. Thus you can end up exercising even before the start of the new month. If you want to start learning programming, just start learning some basic concepts like what is a program, algorithm, or a class, and later on you can find yourself writing some lines of code. PhD from the University of Stanford, BJ Fogg, has mentioned making the task tiny as a step to forming new habits. John Sonmez from SimpleProgrammer.com has a similar productivity technique of focusing for 15 minutes. You can also find in this post about The Art of Productivity in the Pluralsight blog that starting is a very crucial step about productivity. And the best-selling author, Robin Sharma has a great quote about this, which you can read in the image below.
Give this method a try for a few days or for a week, and then, if it works for you, continue to use it.
