The “two-minute rule”  has two parts. First, if something takes less than two minutes, do it now. Next, start building new habits for two minutes at a time. The rule for this is: When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do. The idea is to make your habits as easy to start as possible. Think of these “two-minute habits” as gateway habits that will lead to your overarching goal.

Build good habits in two minutes

“If you don’t want to do something, make a deal with yourself to do at least five minutes of it,” says Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom. “After five minutes, you’ll end up doing the whole thing.” Getting started on something, even for just a few minutes, helps us break down big goals into baby steps.

Set a short timeframe

Instead of just randomly quitting a task, make sure you leave off at a place that will inspire you to get going next time you’re ready to pick it up. <ul><li>Before you finish work for the day, capture any open questions that you’re currently working on. Ask yourself: if you were to continue working, what would be the very next thing you’d do?</li><li>Write those questions and the next thing you would do on a piece of paper.</li><li>Determine what you’ll do first when you sit down to work again. This gives you an immediate starting point for the next day.</li></ul>

End with the beginning in mind

Use the <a href="https://www.themuse.com/advice/a-better-todo-list-the-135-rule">1-3-5 rule</a> when putting together her daily to-do list.On any given day, set nine goals for yourself:  <ul><li>one big-ticket project to tackle</li><li>three medium tasks</li><li>five small things. </li></ul>Narrow down your to-do list to just those things. This keeps you from feeling overwhelmed by an endless list, and also helps keep you focused on just those items.

Tailor your to-do lists

It creates artificial pressure that trains you to deal with real pressure during your career. Procrastinators have to learn to prioritize. Because you’re doing everything at the last minute, there’s no time to forget anything or re-study anything. Your knowledge is fresh and the pressure is on, so you’ll complete the task faster than you would have if you had done it earlier.


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Embrace procrastination

It takes time to get into a rhythm to work on a task. Instead of constantly starting and stopping that process, it’s better to keep your rhythm going by bundling similar tasks together.By doing this, you avoid interruptions and prevents himself from procrastinating.

Complete tasks in batches

A round-up of useful sources to refer to when willpower gets low.

books

Books

problemsolving

Problem Solving

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

timemanagement

Time Management

Beat Procrastination

8 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Humans have a tendency to procrastinate because our minds naturally like to be in a relaxed state. Sometimes it's hard to get going, or we have trouble focusing and find ourselves putting off an unpleasant or difficult task for as long as possible.

Tailor your to-do lists

Similar ideas to Tailor your to-do lists

Overwhelming to-do lists

Here are some potential to-do lists you can use to organize your

Make three to-do lists