What Is the Five-Minute Rule?
The five-minute rule is a cognitive-behavioral technique that is designed to help you overcome procrastination to become more productive.
Essentially, all you need to do is commit to spending just five minutes on whatever it is you’re procrastinating, after which you’re free to stop if you want. In most cases, people continue to work after the five-minute timer expires, but knowing that they could stop if they wanted to give them that little extra incentive to start something they may have put off.
How to Put the Five-Minute Rule Into Action
Let’s say you have a paper to write, and you keep finding yourself on YouTube or Instagram rather than putting pen to paper. While you could use a website blocker to remove distractions while you work, all you really need to do is commit to the five-minute rule. Here’s what you’d do.
Set a timer on your phone or laptop for five minutes. When the timer starts, you start working. Give it your all even if you don’t feel like working; after all, you can stop in five minutes if you like. When the timer goes off, see how you feel. The chances are you’ve overcome the most significant hurdle, which is to start, and now you’re on your way to finishing what you started.
Why Does the Five-Minute Rule Work?
The five-minute rule works because it tackles procrastination at its core. By turning your task into a small, manageable five-minute chunk, your brain no longer sees the task as a threat, and your body won’t enter fight or flight mode. After you’ve tricked your brain into getting started, it usually kicks into gear, and you’ll find that those five minutes turn into thirty minutes or even longer.
So the next time you find yourself putting off something you need to be doing, bargain with yourself and commit to just five minutes, and who knows, you may never procrastinate again!
