BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM
Most to-do lists have two kinds of items on them: the real work you’re managing, and the small things that keep getting moved to tomorrow. Reply to that email. File that paper. RSVP to that thing. None of them take long, yet none of them seem to get done.
The five-minute rule is for the second category. If a task takes five minutes or less, do it now instead of adding it to your list. Not sure if it qualifies? Set a timer. When it goes off, you have permission to stop.
Where the rule comes from
The idea has been around in different forms for years. David Allen, creator of the Getting Things Done method, built a version into his system called the “two-minute rule”: anything that takes two minutes or less, do it now. Kevin Systrom, the former CEO of Instagram, uses a variation specifically for procrastination. He told Axios co-founder Mike Allen in 2017 that the five-minute rule is his favorite life hack: “If you don’t want to do something, make a deal with yourself to do at least five minutes of it. After five minutes, you’ll end up doing the whole thing.”
That’s a different use of the rule than the clearing-small-tasks version. Less about offloading, more about getting started on the thing you keep avoiding.
The problem with a long to-do list
Alexis Haselberger, a time management and productivity coach, calls what happens when small tasks pile up on a list “task-list bloat.”
“In your attempt to keep track of everything, your task list gets so filled up with these tiny tasks that people spend more time pushing them to ‘tomorrow’ over and over again than it would take to just do the task and get it over with,” she says.
The list stops being a tool and becomes a record of everything you haven’t gotten to. The five-minute rule cuts that whole category out.
Haselberger’s test is blunt: “If it takes less than two minutes, it’s not worth putting in your system, and it’s not worth thinking about again. A paper comes across your desk; file it or scan it. You see a mess on the floor; clean it up. You get an invitation; RSVP. Just do it now, check it off, and don’t think about it for one more second.”
What a shorter list does
When the list is short enough to be realistic, there’s a real chance of finishing it. Finishing things tends to make you want to finish more things.
Haselberger notes the rule also works for people who prefer what she calls a “ta-da list,” a record of what’s been done rather than what’s left. Every quick task handled on the spot adds to it immediately.
Two places it can backfire
Some tasks look like five-minute jobs until you start them. If something turns out to be bigger than expected, stop after five minutes, add it to your task list, and return to what you’d planned. “Cut your losses, add it to your task list, and get back to whatever you’ve prioritized,” Haselberger says.
The other trap is letting small tasks break your concentration. The five-minute rule isn’t a reason to interrupt focused work every time something minor comes up. Jot it down and batch those at a natural stopping point: end of a work block, before lunch, end of the day. The rule earns its keep in the gaps between things, not in the middle of them.
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