How To Beat The Procrastination & Get Things Done With This 2 Minute Rule!

Are you tracking progress against your daily/ weekly/ monthly goals? If yes, then are there any activities or tasks which you keep pushing out even though you know that you need to act? In short, is procrastination blocking or hampering your progress? If yes, then let’s see what could be the ways to deal with it.

Welcome to another podcast or I’d prefer to call it as a career nugget. I am Akanksha, your dream career coach. I help people find their calling and fast-track to their dream careers based on their calling, create financial freedom, maximize their potential and uplift their energy, consciousness and careers. Today I am going to talk about 7 ways to beat the procrastination.

So, I hear about procrastination all the time from many people. First let’s understand what is procrastination. Procrastination means A) to put off intentionally and habitually B) to put off doing something that should be done; C) to delay doing something until a later time because you do not want to do it.

As Napoleon Hill put it, "Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday."

The thing that's so weird about procrastination is that everybody knows it doesn't get you where you want to go – yet we still do it. And procrastination doesn't even feel good. It's okay for a few moments when you think I’ll do it after say 10 minutes! But then you don’t end up doing what needs to be done and it takes you on a guilt trip. Then you go into a loop of giving justification/ excuses like right now is not the right time or I’m too tired and my body needs rest etc. We may postpone out of laziness or we may be scared that the work is too complex/ difficult. E.g. How many of us delay filing taxes so much that we do it last minute or even after the deadline at times! Does this sound familiar to you?

Many times, we postpone some work because we want to be perfect in it; so, we don’t start it at all!

“The Secret Of Getting Ahead Is Getting Started” - Mark Twain

We don’t get started on work at all because we are obsessed about perfection. Then we do on adding these tasks on the to do list. Did you know that 9 out of 10 people never finish their daily to-do lists because they include a lot of mundane tasks? That‘s where the 2-minute rules comes into play: it helps you get rid of a ton of unimportant things from your to-do list so you can focus your time on finishing the most important ones. Remember: you can use this hack in your personal and professional life.

So, there’s a technique highlighted in David Allen’s bestselling book, ‘Getting Things Done’. It suggests that if a task takes less than 2-minutes then just do it now. This 2-minute rule could be useful in stopping the procrastination and getting things done. If a task takes only 2 minutes or less, then just do it right away. Don’t add it to your to-do list. Don’t put it aside for later. And don’t delegate it to someone else. Just do it. The time that it takes you to write it down/add it to your to-do manager and the clutter that adds to your mind is not worth it.

Here are some examples of tasks you can do in two minutes or less:

• Answer an email from your boss/coworker
• Come up with a few blog ideas
• Send an update to a colleague
• Plan for the day while having your morning coffee
• Taking out the trash
• Loading the dishwasher right after the meal

There are a ton of tiny, seemingly trivial tasks that take less than two minutes, yet you need to do EVERY DAY. This way you save yourself time that would have been wasted on reviewing the same task on your to-do list over and over again for weeks. Plus, you reduce anxiety and boost your self-confidence by getting more things done.

If your task is going to need more than 2 minutes, then break it down into steps which can be done in 2 minutes to complete. So, for example:

·      Want to publish a report or a book? simply write couple of sentences a day.

·      Want to meditate for 20 minutes? Start with meditating 2 minutes and then gradually increase.

·      Want to read 20 books this year? read one page of a book a day.

·      Want to eat healthy and lose 10 pounds of weight? eat one apple a day.

·      Want to go to the gym 3 times a week? put on your running shoes and at least do 2 minutes warm up.

By breaking down your massive goal into small ‘2-minute’ chunks, you can build momentum and trick your mind to taking more action than you initially set out to do in 2 minutes. This 2-minute rule can help you beat the procrastination and get things done!

That’s all for today. Trust you found this career nugget useful. Look forward to connecting with you in more such career nuggets. Wishing you all loads of success, prosperity and wealth!

If you want more details about the DCC i.e. Dream Career Code, connect with me in my FREE LIVE webinar "3 Shifts I used for Getting UNSTUCK and FAST-TRACKING to DREAM CAREER". Learn how to get unstuck, maximize potential, increase personal productivity & fast-track your career! You can also how learn to set up your own side hustle- elearning career freedom business!

https://dreamcareercalling.co/freedom

To your success and Dream Career!