The Danger Of The 2—Minute Rule
It’s easy to loose track of time after starting a 2-minute task. Although it’s a good thing that you can immerse yourself in a task that you had to use the 2-minute rule to begin with, losing track of time may leave you behind on everything else.
Pay attention to your schedule and prioritize properly.
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- If you're trying to build new habits and skills, making every step of the way an easily achievable 2-minute chunk, will make you more likely to do it over and over again.
- The 2–Minute Rule works for big goals as well as small goals because of the inertia of life. Once you start doing something, it’s easier to continue doing it. It also teaches you to get to the point of getting things done.
- If you can do it in less than two minutes, do it now (assuming you have no other, bigger priorities at the moment.)
- When you start a new habit, make your goals into 2-minute bites, so they're easy to do any time.
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It helps you decide when to tackle a task by following the steps below:
- Define clearly what is the task and the actions that compose it.
- If the action takes less than two minutes, do it, although it is not an urgent or high-priority task; if not, defer it or delegate it.
- If you do not achieve the result of the task with the action, identify the next action and process it following the same criteria of the previous step.
- If doing a task will take less time than processing it, organizing it in your lists and tracking it timely, it is more efficient to do it right away.
- If it takes less than 2 minutes, then do it now.
- When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.
With this rule, you do anything that presents itself, right away, as long as you can do it in a minute: Hang up your coat, read a letter and toss it, fill in a form, answer an email, note down a citation, put a dish in the dishwasher, etc.
Because the tasks are so quick, it isn’t too hard to make yourself follow the rule, but it has big results. Keeping all those small, nagging tasks under control makes you more serene, less overwhelmed.