How to overcome procrastination in 5 minutes

That rule

All we sometimes can not bring himself to take up the case. Kevin Systrom (Kevin Systrom), head of Instagram, also faces this problem. For such situations, he developed normally five minutes.

If you do not want to do something, promise yourself to do it only for five minutes. Most likely, after those five minutes you will do everything to the end.

Why it works

"Procrastination usually cause fear or conflict", - says Christine Lee (Christine Li), a clinical psychologist who specializes in procrastination. Even when we want to do business, fear of failure, criticism or stress makes us fight with myself. We do not want our fears become reality. "Because of this conflict, it seems that it is impossible to start work, - continues Lee. - That explains why we sometimes prokrastiniruem, even if it is meaningless. "

Rule five minutes liberates us. It seems possible to briefly dip into the project at any time and come up again.

You have the right to remain to reconsider its decision in five minutes. This gives a sense of control over the situation. It seems that you decide and do not feel the pressure from the outside.

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Julia Moller (Julia Moeller), on educational psychology expert at Yale University

More generally five minutes to reduce the costs of operations. For example, emotional (fear, anxiety), alternative (that you're missing, engaged in this business), energy (as a tedious affair). Motivation engaged in business increases when the costs are reduced.

Why do we continue to work after the first minute

Our understanding of how the task is unpleasant, often wrong. Start a business, we usually refer to it more positively than expected.

For example, the researchers compared theDo Girls Really Experience More Anxiety in Mathematics? expectations and actual student performance. Students felt that they know in mathematics is worse than their male classmates. However, gender differences disappeared when the researchers assessed the ability and the anxiety of all students in the time of the test in mathematics. Representation of students have not been confirmed. Their feelings during the test period did not correspond to negative expectations.

It is not only that the problem is not so unpleasant. Once started, we often find ourselves in state of flux. In it we are fully immersed in the business and forget about everything around. Time flies by. But more often we plunge into it when doing complex cases. For example, we force ourselves to do as much as possible in just five minutes. But even such mundane things like washing dishes or spell check the text, can be immersed in the flow.

Rule five minutes gives us the feeling that we control their work.

After five minutes, the big project will still be great. But when you have overcome the first threshold - the reluctance to start, he no longer seem impossible.