Two Minute Rule

My smartwatch has a timer, an application not as well thought out by the designers as some of its other features.  It enables one touch application of a countdown from one to six minutes.  It makes the Two Minute Rule easy to implement.

Procrastination has always plagued me.  Eventually I come through, but after endless excuses to postpone.  My daily task list always has something that takes under two minutes.  Swallowing my pills, weighing myself every Monday morning, measuring my blood pressure with an automated cuff, counting the Omer every nightfall between Pesach and Shavuot.  I do them all.  Quick check marks.  Most things take longer.  When I make tomorrow's Daily Task List each nignt, my designation isolates tasks that take less than ten minutes, not two.  Performance on these short items is very uneven, not because I shun them as much as their lower priority.  Big projects, multi-day and multi-week initiatives, take hours, not minutes.  The individual steps may take only minutes, which makes the Two Minute Rule so valuable.

Most psychologists have concluded that once people have passed a certain threshold of activity, typically two minutes, they do not stop that activity.  Knowing that they can end their effort offers some control.  I will do this with some repetitive chores.  How much underwear can I fold in two minutes?  How many coffee cups can I wash?  I certainly could make the endpoint six t-shirts or five coffee cups.  But timing activity to a clock, one that will count down, has the advantage of going to completion.  I can always stop when my smartwatch signals two minutes, knowing I have completed my obligation.  I cannot wash three cups and tell myself I've done five.

In reality, though, people judge us, and we assess ourselves, by how much we accomplish, not how much time we spend working on it.  So real two minute tasks like making a k-cup of coffee have something to show for the brief effort.  Putting on running shoes but not running does not.  Some things you have to intend to perform, not just start.

Exercise on a treadmill and stretching with a YouTube video serve as hybrids.  I've never liked doing either.  It wouldn't occur to me to start for two minutes then decide whether to proceed to completion.  The treadmill has a set distance, typically four or five electronic display laps, and a set speed.  I need to do the program.  Once the laps reach the pre-set conclusion., I look at the machine's timer, then extend to a time-determined landmark.  The stretch takes 8 minutes spread evenly over 16 exercises.  I do not mentally credit myself until the final stretch of the right side of the neck at the video's end.  

My fondness for the kitchen does not adapt well to the Two Minute Rule.  Certainly I can set two place settings or transfer the refrigerated ingredients to the table in that let's start mode, but creating something edible, or even whipping something properly with an electric mixer really takes as much time as required.

Despite the Two Minute Rule's limitations, no worthy efforts can succeed without the first step.  Two Minutes offers that first step, always preferable to not taking that first step.