Now, there’s a simple and effective way to increase your focus and productivity in just two minutes thanks to David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity, which examines the simple process behind immediate productivity.
So what is the two minute rule and how does it help? It involves the following two steps:
Deciding what meets the two minute rule – you have to decide if something will only take two minutes to complete. If it takes longer than two minutes, delegate the task to a later time for example washing your dishes immediately after a meal, taking out the garbage, sending that email.
When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do – let’s be honest; not all of your goals can be accomplished in less than two minutes. However, every goal can be started in two minutes and that’s the purpose behind the two minute rule. The most important part of any new habit is getting started; not the first time abut each and every time. It’s not about the performance, it’s about consistently taking action.
In practice, the rule works incredible well by taking out the “thinking” behind prioritising tasks and picking which one to do first. It’s very easy to lose time scheduling tasks to complete, organising yours emails and so on. When you just do something, you eliminate all the planning time. As David Allen said in a recent interview, the rule is “tricking you into making an executive decision about what is the next thing that needs to happen and that’s really the training people need.”
