The Power of the 10-Minute Timer

I don't know why I started doing this, but recently I've been setting a timer for ten minutes and doing as much of a task as I can in those ten minutes. When the timer goes off, I'm allowed to stop and check "do some of X" off my to-do list.

I'm not so much a procrastinator as I am an avoider. Those feel like different things in my mind. Sometimes I will know that something won't take very long and I'll actively want to do it, but it's like I'm scared of it. It's that quality of being stuck in Flight mode all the time.

Other times I'll know that something will, in fact, take a very long time—more than one day's worth of time and effort—but I know that I need to do some of it today, and I just...can't. It's that fear/Flight mode.

But the ten-minute timer has solved this problem about 95% of the time. In fact, this post has been rattling around in my brain for about a week and I've been putting off writing it. However, I said to myself, "Just write what you can in ten minutes," so here I am, with 1:24 minutes to go. (Yes, it has taken me over eight minutes just to write four paragraphs.)

And here's the thing: In 50 seconds, the timer on my phone will go off, and I'll hit "Repeat" and keep writing. Because that's the thing:

Starting a task is BY FAR the hardest part. Like it's actually unbelievable how hard it is to begin a task compared with how hard it is to keep going. It's like the human mind is a giant dresser that needs to be slid across the room, and once you get a little momentum, it's possible just to keep pushing it until it's in place.

This is old news to some of you. I'm sure there's psychology about this, but I don't know what it is. It probably has to do with depression and dopamine. I just know that if I give myself permission to do a task for only ten minutes, more often than not I put in a legitimate amount of time and effort, and it's not that bad.

Sometimes I do stop after the timer goes off, and that's always acceptable too. I'm not lying to myself that I only have to do ten minutes while secretly having an agenda to do it longer (although that is totally something I would do). The deal is that I only have to do ten minutes, and if I want to keep going after that, of course that's allowed too.

For me, this has worked with cleaning the apartment, tackling big work projects, going to the gym, and more. I don't know if it'll work for everyone, but I think it's worth a shot.

Set a ten-minute timer and see what happens.

~Stephanie