5 Minute Rule to Beating Procrastination

Hey readers 👋

You know that feeling where you have a lot of things you need to do but haven’t gotten round to starting?

You’ve set out a meticulous plan as to how you are going to be able to complete your tasks. The groundwork and preparation have already been done. All you need to do now is get started and begin crossing these tasks off your to-do lists.

Yet, you seem unable to do the work. Despite the detailed plan, you fail to get started.

This is an unfortunate situation which those of us who are serial procrastinations are fully aware of.

Whenever I find myself in such a situation, I remember my own advice that I’ve previously written about. You just need to get started.

Unfortunately, we’re never going to be in the mood to do everything we need to do. Life isn’t so kind to us. Only children do what they’re in the mood for.

Adults need to do important things that we sometimes aren’t in the mood for. And the best way to do this is to just get started. As a first step, just commit to 5 minutes of the activity.

Once we’ve started (which is always the hardest part of anything), we will often continue working on that task or activity for a lot longer than we’ve committed ourselves to. We’ll eventually get into the mood.

This was something I very recently did. I planned to read a book, but I kept procrastinating and didn’t get started. I decided to pick the book up and commit to only reading for five minutes.

Within those five minutes, I had gotten into the book. I was now in the mood to continue reading for a lot longer than the five minutes that I initially gave myself.

Whenever you find yourself procrastinating something, remember that you’re never always going to be in the mood.

You just need to get started.

Have an awesome week ahead 🤩

—

Please consider sharing this newsletter with a friend if you have enjoyed reading what I have to say this week. Let’s spread the word.

Featured Article

Your Uniqueness Is Your Superpower

I used a short story to bring out why it’s important to call out the obvious and to have the confidence to share an opposing viewpoint to general consensus.

Samuel ObeSamuel Ajayi-Obe

3 Things I've Enjoyed This Week

1. Steve Jobs Leadership Skills Breakdown - How To Motivate People - An excellent video breaking down Steve Job’s leadership style at Apple and the impact it had on Apple’s people, culture and products.
2. 11 Successful Leaders: How They Achieved It - An excellent article highlighting 11 leaders in their field and how they achieved their success. Leadership is a skill that can be learned, not something you’re born with.
3. Lottery winners and accident victims: is happiness relative? - A research paper looking into happiness. Spoiler: lottery winners are not happier and took less pleasure from a series of mundane events.

Tweet of the Week

This Week's Wisdom

“…sleep is the single most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day—Mother Nature’s best effort yet at contra-death.”
- Matthew Walker, in the book: Why We Sleep

I use readwise to resurface content I've previously highlighted. My followers can get an extra month for free by following this link.

Every Sunday, I write a lesson I wished I had learned 10 years earlier, to feed our brains with intelligent content to start our week.

I also share interesting articles, book quotes, and the occasional speech or TED talk to help us all get smarter, wiser, and live better.

I follow my curiosity at SamuelObe.com

If you’re reading this but aren’t a subscriber, sign up below, it’s easy!

Subscribe below to receive new post updates the minute they are published. You will also receive my weekly newsletter, where I share interesting articles, books, quotes and lessons that I have learnt during the past week.