The 5-Minute-Method Man

[Kudos to those who got the Irving reference.]

Disclaimer: I'm sure that either a) this is an old idea I've unconsciously lifted or b) someone else will publish it soon -- but I don't care, because it works. For me, at least.

I have a problem with procrastination. In my experience, lots of creative people do -- there's probably a correlation there, and it may even be a survival mechanism: if you start something at the last minute, you can't spend weeks and weeks on it to the exclusion of other minor details such as, e.g., eating. [yes, I realize that was redundant, it was for comic effect --a6]

But recently I've had a little breakthrough. Here it is: No matter how insurmountable or insignicant the task, if it occurs to you that it needs doing, take 5 minutes and do something about it. 5 minutes works for me -- maybe for others it might be 10, or 3. But in 5 minutes, either 1) you'll get it done (if it's small), 2) you'll have spent 5 minutes on it that you wouldn't have otherwise or (and here's the biggie) 3) you'll decide "oh, hell, I've started this, I may as well finish it!"

A few caveats: obviously, this could be a method of procrastination in itself; I accept no responsibility should that prove the case for you. Also, one's attitude must be "I'll do the best job at this as I can for 5 minutes" not "I need to finish this in 5 minutes, I'll just do a really crappy job of it." In other words, better you should clean one dish or pan really well than get them ALL done but have to redo them because they all have dried food on them.

This post (which took more than five minutes, I'm sorry to say) is an example of the success of this method. Yay me!

[edit] Something else that just came up: if you have two tasks of equal importance, and one of them takes less time... do that one first. You'll be able to relax about the second one sooner.