From Where I Sit

Beth was having a hard time keeping on top of marking the assignments her students had handed in. The papers had been transferred between her desk at school to her desk at home over and over but Beth was not getting around to sitting at her desk and marking the assignments. This was symptomatic of Beth’s life, things kept getting put off until the very last possible moment when it was just not possible to delay any further. This was driving Beth to distraction. She was sick of living like this, always leaving things to the last moment, always waiting until the pressure built up and pushed her through the paralysing procrastination.

Beth hadn’t always suffered under the burden of procrastination, and she wanted her life back the way it was before. This post will detail one small part of the techniques Beth used to push through procrastination and get her energy, motivation and momentum back. Beth called it the “five minute technique”.

When Beth was faced with a task that she had putting off and didn’t want to tackle, she would use the ‘five minute technique’ to get her started. While the voice of procrastination was filling her head with all the reasons she didn’t want to do it, and how hard and boring it would be, and how there were other things that needed doing, Beth would tell herself she would just sit down and tackle the task for five minutes. That was all she had to do, five minutes worth of the activity. After five minutes she was absolutely free to get up and wander off to do something else. There was absolutely no obligation to continue the activity beyond the five minutes. No pressure to persist, no guilt for changing activity, her only commitment was to five minutes of activity, not to the whole task. If after five minutes she wanted to do another five minutes, she could, but she didn’t have to, she only needed to do five minutes.

Because it was easier for Beth to consider a five minute commitment than a two or three hour commitment, it was easier for her to dismiss the voice of procrastination when it tried to convince her that the fridge needed cleaning instead, or that she should phone a friend. Beth was able to think, well I’ll just do five minutes and then I can get up to make a phone call if I want to. So Beth was able to get up off the couch, sit herself at her desk and get her mind ready to tackle the task she had set. Procrastination hadn’t let her get this far, so the five minute technique helped her get started on her task. This is a key point in overcoming procrastination; making a start.

The next part of the five minute technique was to ask herself after five minutes whether she wanted to do another five minutes or wanted to get up and do something else. She really gave herself this freedom, the five minute technique wasn’t any trick where five minutes really meant sitting down for hours. After five minutes Beth was entirely free to choose a different activity. However, Beth most often did chose to do another five minutes and another after that and then proceeded with the task until she felt ready for a break. However, this was not always the case and sometimes Beth did get up after five minutes and wander off to do something else. That was OK because it was all part of the five minute technique. Making a start didn’t mean that you had to keep going, but it was important to make the five minute start.

This simple but powerful technique works because procrastination gets most of its power by preventing us from starting activity. Once we make a start, even the smallest start, we gain an edge over procrastination. The smaller we can make the first step, the easier it is to take that very small step, even in the face of strong procrastination. The five minute technique is about breaking an overwhelming task down to one small beginning step that seems manageable. However, in order for this technique to work, there really has to be the freedom to get up after five minutes. It may seem paradoxical that in order to get things done we need to give ourselves the freedom to stop after only five minutes, but this is a key to the success of this technique. The first step needs to be manageable enough to outweigh the seductive voice of procrastination.

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