The 2-Minute Rule: The One Simple Productivity Hack Everybody Needs

To defeat procrastination and get things done

Let’s dive straight into what the 2-minute rule is.

“Anything that can be done within 2 minutes has to be done right away,”

This is a simple principle that would yield profound results and integrates amazingly well with your life if you stick to it religiously. I came across this idea in the book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen.

The 2-minute rule is part of the capturing process in the GTD (stands for getting things done) system by David Allen. Here are some other things that would be useful to implement along with the 2-minute rule to boost your daily productivity.

Reading this further on you would come across the idea of keeping a list. The list I am implying can be a list you keep in your Reminders app, or a physical piece of paper you keep at your work desk, or your notebook that you always come back to. I am sharing a method of doing things, and you are free to pick your tool.

Capturing

You should first have the habit of writing down all the things you have to do that comes to mind. As one of my favorite Youtubers, Ali Abdaal puts it: “The mind is for coming up with ideas, not storing them,”

In-trays

The moment something that has to be done appears in your head, whether it is watering the plants, or calling a friend, or replying to an email, or reading up on the buzz about cryptocurrency lately, write it down. Write it down on a list called an in-tray. This list is for anything that comes to mind, and they can sound random, they don’t have to be structured in any way. Everything that is written on this list is meant for you to come back to review.

Define end goal

Whenever you have time, come back to your in-tray and skim through every single thing you have written on the list. Give each entry a defined end goal. “What do I have to see happen for this task to be marked as completed?” That’s the question you ask to define your end goal.

Once the end goal of a task is defined, move it out of the in-tray. If it is time-specific, it belongs to your calendar. If it is something that can be done anytime, move it to another list called Anytime. In-trays are strictly reserved for raw, unstructured, undefined things that just came off the top of your head.

Application of the 2-minute rule

While deciding where do your tasks belong, you can ask yourself the money question.

“Can this be completed in two minutes or less?”

If yes, that is something to be done immediately.

Why is this simple rule so profound?

It’s easy to be write down what needs to be done and come up with to-do lists. Everybody can easily do that. However, if all I do is write but never got to do the things that are written down all I would end up with a packed to-do list. Moreover, this to-do list is going to be filled with tasks that require very different amounts of effort and time from one another. You have tasks that can be done in 2 minutes like “Send a text to remind Amy to take out the trash” or “Send a Happy Birthday text to Uncle Roger” to huge projects like “Project manage the final assignment of Macroeconomics class” all on the same list. From my experience, it is a very unpleasant experience.

In this cluttered to-do list situation, the 2-minute rule list can act as a filter. When the 2-minute rule is applied, you would have completed all the tasks on the list that requires two minutes or less to complete. So whenever you look at the list, you would know from the back of your head that all the things on the list are things that require you to make out time to complete.

Another thing the 2-minute rule is capable of is to force you to start doing things. When you self-implement this rule in your life, it forces you to get to work immediately whenever you come across something that can be done within 2-minutes. I am sure there are a lot of 2-minute tasks that come up in a single day, and if you leave all of that in your to-do list to be done at a later time, 10 of those tasks would take up one-third of an hour of your day when done altogether. In comparison, doing it 2 minutes at a time feels like way less effort.

Some things done are better than nothing done.

The 2-minute rule sounds easy to do, and that’s the most powerful element of this productivity hack. It sounds easy enough for anybody to start doing it right away. Anything that helps you get things done but feels easy and effortless at the same time is a powerful thing.

Takeaway

The 2-minute rule is a very useful self-implicated rule to help you get stuff done. Whenever something that can be done in 2 minutes or less comes to mind, do it immediately.

My name is Carlson Ng and I write about creative, digital lifestyle and self-improvement. I am still a college student and aspire to be a digital content creator. If you want to hear more from me, feel free to subscribe to my newsletter.