PRODUCTIVITY HACKS — SOLUTION FOR EVERY PROBLEM

Two-Minute Rule Can Make You Unproductive — Unless You Avoid This Mistake

The two-minute rule is a productivity trick popularized by productivity consultant David Allen

“If it takes less than two minutes, then do it now.”

David Allen, through his bestseller Getting Things Done, popularized the two-minute rule. The rule is simple and keeps smaller tasks from piling up. For example, answering a mail is easy. Calling one client is easy. Reading a document is easy. Recording a sale is also easy. So is scheduling a meeting. But if you keep them for later, you might end up with 10 unanswered mails, 4 clients to call, 3 unread documents, and 5 unscheduled meetings. That list will become quite a big pile. It’s likely you will not be able to finish all of them either.

That’s why the two-minute rule makes sense. It asks you to complete a task if it doesn’t take much time.

But there’s a catch —

The context-switching trap

One of the killers of productivity is multitasking. What is especially dangerous is context switching. Context switching is the process of jumping from one task to an unrelated task. It’s something we do when we are overwhelmed.

Problem is, our brain doesn’t take it too well. Multitasking leads to what psychologists call “task switch costs”. Our brain can’t concentrate well enough immediately. It takes some time to get back to a high level of concentration. Our brain also gets fatigued from switching too often. There’s also the matter of negative rewards. When we complete a task, our brain rewards us and we feel good. That good feeling helps us do some extra work. But by multitasking, we delay that reward.

How can you use the two-minute rule effectively

Task batching

The two-minute rule is an effective hack. To avoid context switching, you should batch similar tasks together so that you don’t have to bear the “task switch costs”. You can schedule 30 minutes to get through 15–20 emails. You can schedule an hour to handle all client calls. By putting similar tasks together, you avoid multitasking.

Although, you don’t want the batches to feel overwhelming either. That’s exactly what the two-minute rule wants to avoid. To do that, you can keep 30 minutes free in your calendar but don’t say to yourself that you will get rid of all emails. Start with the thought that you will only check one email and give that 2 minutes of your time. Ease yourself in and that will help you balance both the positives and negatives of task batching and the two-minute rule.

Create habits

The two-minute rule is excellent for creating habits. Do you want to read every day? Ask yourself to just spend two minutes reading one page. You can stop after one page. But after a few days when you will get used to reading every day, your mind will ask you to read an extra page. Eventually, you will make reading a habit.

To summarize

The productivity techniques have their pros and cons. It’s best if you mix them and create a formula that works best for you. You can read about other productivity hacks by clicking on the link below —

Articles: Productivity and Life Hack Articles

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