#140 - The Five Minute Rule

Beyond the Present Podcast

When was the last time you knew what you had to do but could not get yourself to do it? You probably felt bad about continuing to postpone the task not knowing how on earth you could ever get it done! In this short program you will learn how to put an end to that feeling once and for all using the five minute rule!

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

minutes, task, feel, inertia, push, momentum, flashcards, rule, truck, stop, harder, started, heavy, physical, car, moving, goddamn, podcast, prepare, simply

SPEAKERS

Dan

Dan 00:10

Hi, guys, this is Margaret, and welcome to yet another episode of beyond the present podcast. As always, with you, Daniel Morgan here, and I would like to ask you to discuss a very important subject in a few minutes, one of those short podcasts that we have, and that is what I call the five minute rule. We see guys, a lot of the times in life, we know what we should be doing. But we just don't feel like it. Like I know I should right now be going to the gym and doing some, you know, perhaps yoga or do this or do that. We kind of feel like we know what we want to do. But we just can't get ourselves to do it. There's no motivation, there's no desire, like, come on, man. How, how in the world? Am I supposed to right now start? I don't know, doing my German flashcards, for example, or how in the world should I just right now prepare that contract with a client or I just don't feel like getting off the couch, man, I just want to sit here and watch TV, not to go for a jog. So for those situations, when you kind of don't feel like you want to do something, and you have no motivation at all, I use the five minute rule. And that, of course, can help you to do those things very easily. So what is the five minute rule, whether it is a very arduous, difficult task that takes hours to complete or just something you know, takes basically a short while, the five minute rule says whenever you don't feel like doing something important, just tell yourself, I will do it for only five minutes, that's it, I'll just get started. Do it for five minutes. And then I will stop if I want it to stop. And I will simply not continue that, you know, kind of makes you feel pretty good. Because you are doing something number one, and number two, you can just have the freedom to simply stop doing it after five minutes. So let's say I'm gonna do my I don't know term paper or my taxes, or do the emails or prepare tomorrow's presentations, or, as I mentioned, just grab, you know, some Mandarin Chinese flashcards to go for their studies, whatever it is, you feel like, you know what, I'm not gonna get started right now, but five minutes not going to kill anybody, right? It's not gonna be that difficult. So let's get started right now with five minutes, because the truth of matter is doing anything for five minutes as possible, whether it is to wait, you know, in a line or whether it is to, I don't know, clean the place, whatever it is, doing something for five minutes for the absolute majority of the world population is not a very big investment of time. And it's not basically that difficult to do. Even if you hate, you could do anything that you hate for five minutes. Just think of all the things you hate the most, whatever they are, you can do them for five minutes, no matter how much you hate something, you can still do it for five minutes. So next time, whenever you do something, you say, all right, right now, I'm just going to do this for five minutes. Because you can literally do what I do, which is using a timer. I am not kidding, you literally use a timer. And you say, I'm going to be doing this task for only five minutes. And if after five minutes, I felt like I don't want to continue, I will stop it. And I will try it again tomorrow. Very simple. Let's say you have a very important task it right. Based on your deadline, you say I'm going to right now do this for only five minutes. And then I can stop after five minutes if I felt like I can't do it any longer. And here's the truth. Once you start doing a task for only five minutes, in the absolute majority of cases, you can easily continue doing it. You know why? Because you have already conquered the biggest challenge on the way to doing things that are hard to do. And that's the initial gain and momentum. Because when you don't feel like something, it's so much harder to do it because it's kind of like you know, trying to move a very heavy car, or like, for example a train. So if you wanted to move for example, a very heavy object, let's say a very, you know, heavy car. The initial push that takes you to push that car is oftentimes the hardest challenge I've ever like, watched you know, these Ironman competitions where these extremely powerful muscular guys grab these, I don't know trucks and like question literally and pull them or something. Well, if you've noticed, as I have, when these guys are trying to push that truck, the biggest amount of effort that I have to make is to get that goddamn huge truck just moving. So at the very beginning like the truck is not moving and these guys are like pushing all mine. They're pushing They're pushing, they do their very best until boom, that truck gradually starts moving. And once it gradually starts moving, then you see that you know, this, basically, cars speeding up and gaining acceleration basically, right? So simple physical, basically formula, right? We, probably all of us, we have actually said this in physics. So there are no real physical reasons why this happens. Now, what do we know into details of physics here, but this is a real, you know, inertia problem of inertia, right. So, the same thing can happen in anything you do. And yes, we have this thing called psychological or emotional inertia or momentum. For example, if you want to get yourself to do something, whether it is to do your, you know, goddamn, I don't know, term papers, or to do something that you really don't like, the biggest challenge is just like, you know, those heavy guys and the strong guys were pushing this thing, the biggest challenge is right at the very beginning, to push that thing. Now, if I told those strong men, that you should better be pulling or pushing this heavy car or truck, for I don't know, the next 20 minutes, they probably wanted to get started like, dude, I don't want to die, it's going to be impossible. But if I told him, just push this car, from here to there, alright. And I don't know, perhaps what that let's say, three 400 feet, right? Just push them from here to there, they will do it. Because in that situation, they don't see a major challenge ahead. So they have a lot more motivation to get that get started and get it done. When you tell yourself, I'm going to do this thing that I really hate for only five minutes, here's the interesting fact. You then realize after five minutes, then the absolute majority of cases, you do not need to stop, you can simply continue going forward. And from then on, it's so much easier to see, you know, simply continue and finish the tasks that you started, because now you have what is right momentum, once you have momentum, it becomes a lot easier to finish the task, and it takes a lot less energy to as a matter of fact, when you get started doing that task, after about five minutes, it is harder to stop than it is to continue by the same physical law of inertia, it becomes easier to simply continue the task and see it to its fruition than it is to stop it. And that is what I use all the time to use, you know, and to do the things that I know I should be doing that I might not feel like it. Because if you live like me, you probably have a lot of tasks and responsibilities. And a lot of routine, basically tasks, particularly about you know, finances, or let's say language learning, as you probably know, learning languages is somehow not always fun. And it involves a lot of repetition, a lot of reviews. And you don't always feel like doing your I don't know, Italian, for example, exercise on Duolingo. or doing for example, your Swedish practice on Mon Li You just don't feel like it, man. But with the same five minute rule, you can actually get yourself to do it. And all you got to tell yourself is I'm just going to get started, I'm going to do it for only five minutes. And then if I didn't feel like it anymore, I'm gonna stop. And guess what, in most cases, you will not. So now, you know, don't get me wrong, sometimes you really hate something so much that you are going to stop. But that's going to be a very, very small portion of the cases that you will have to face with. So in the absolute majority of cases, it becomes actually easier to continue than it is to stop. And of course, you end up doing all the things you had to do. Even though initially you had no desire to do them. So from now on, guys, anytime you felt like you want to do something, you don't feel like it. It's the time to do it. The deadline is approaching, just use the five minute rule. Tell yourself, I'm going to get started. And I'm going to do it for just five minutes. And after that, I'll stop. And then you'll realize that by the time you've already finished the five minutes, you simply want to keep going. Alright guys, that was it. This was our short program today. And I hope that you guys not only enjoy the program, but we'll use the five minute rule from now on in all of your pursuits and all of your tasks because you know, it is important, of course to use this principle to get more things done to become more consistent and to achieve your goals in a timely fashion. So time we have for this was Daniel Morgan and this was beyond the present podcast how to go on and take care