Spend 2 minutes on the task you're avoiding
Planning when and where you'll act makes you more likely to reach your goals than intending to alone.
The form has sat in your inbox for nine days, and each time you see the subject line you close the tab a little faster. Avoiding it feels better for a moment, and then the worry returns, slightly larger. This habit asks for something very small: open the task, give it two minutes, and then you may stop. Start first, decide after.
What it helps with
Procrastination
Planning when and where you'll act makes you more likely to reach your goals than intending to alone.
Deadline stress
Students who put things off had more stress and illness near deadlines than students who started earlier.
Key facts
- 1A 2007 meta-analysis estimated that around 15 to 20 percent of adults procrastinate chronically.
- 2In a semester-long study, students who procrastinated reported less stress early on but more stress and illness near the deadlines.
- 3The same students who procrastinated also tended to earn lower grades than students who started earlier.
- 4Researchers describe procrastination as a way to feel better in the short term, at the cost of your future self.
- 5A meta-analysis of 94 studies linked if-then plans, which name when and where you will act, to more goals being reached.
Why avoiding feels good, then worse
Putting something off is rarely about laziness. Researchers Fuschia Sirois and Timothy Pychyl describe procrastination as a way to repair your mood right now: the task brings up dread, boredom or self-doubt, and stepping away makes that feeling fade. The catch is that the task is still there, and so is the deadline. The relief belongs to you today, and the bill goes to you next week.
That is why the habit focuses on the moment before you begin. Start first, decide after. You are not promising to finish, only to sit with the task long enough to see what it actually involves.
Why a tiny start helps
A two-minute start is a version of what productivity writers call the two-minute rule: shrink the first step until it feels almost silly to refuse. Two minutes is long enough to open the file, read the first line and write one rough sentence. Many people find the task looks smaller once it is open, and some keep going. Stopping when the timer ends still counts.
The other half is deciding in advance when the start happens. Psychologists call this an implementation intention, an if-then plan such as "when I sit down at my desk, I open the report." Tying the start to a moment you already have takes away one more decision on a day when you have little appetite for decisions.
What studies of procrastination show
In a well-known 2007 meta-analysis, Piers Steel pooled hundreds of studies and estimated that around 15 to 20 percent of adults procrastinate chronically. Earlier, Dianne Tice and Roy Baumeister followed university students through a semester. Those who put things off felt less stressed at first, but near the deadlines they reported more stress and more illness, and they tended to earn lower grades.
On the planning side, a 2006 meta-analysis of 94 studies by Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran found that people who made if-then plans reached their goals more often than people who only intended to act. The effect was moderate and fairly consistent. One limit is worth knowing: much of this research involved students and relied on self-reports, and the two-minute start itself has not been tested as a single trial. It combines findings that are well supported, so expect a modest nudge rather than a cure.
Fitting two minutes into your day
Pick one avoided task each morning and attach it to sitting down at your desk, before email. If the task is due Friday and today is Monday, that gives you four short starts before the deadline instead of one panicked evening. On a bad day, shrink it further: open the document, type the title, close it. Start first, decide after, and let the timer settle the argument you have with yourself every morning. Over a few weeks you become someone who opens the hard file first.
You will hear yourself say the task needs a proper block of time. It might, and two minutes is how that block usually gets booked. If avoidance comes with low mood, constant worry or trouble getting through the day, talk to a doctor or a therapist rather than relying on a habit. Which task have you closed the tab on most often this week?
Action steps
- 1Choose tomorrow's task tonight. Before you finish for the day, write the one task you've been avoiding on a sticky note and put it on your keyboard.
- 2Set a timer for 2 minutes. When you sit down at your desk, open the task before email or messages and work on it until the timer ends.
- 3Decide after the timer. When it rings, either keep going or stop and note the very next step, so tomorrow's start is even easier.
Suggested routines
- Not reaching your goals
Track 1 specific number daily
Tracking your progress toward a goal makes you more likely to reach it.
- Decision fatigue
Set 3 daily goals the night before
Resisting temptation may leave less willpower for hard tasks, though later studies found this effect is smaller than first thought.
- Reaching your goals
Write down 3 daily achievements
Tracking your progress toward a goal makes you more likely to reach it, especially when you write it down or share it.
References
- Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65–94. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.65
- Tice, D. M., & Baumeister, R. F. (1997). Longitudinal study of procrastination, performance, stress, and health: The costs and benefits of dawdling. Psychological Science, 8(6), 454–458. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00460.x
- Sirois, F., & Pychyl, T. (2013). Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood regulation: Consequences for future self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115–127. doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12011
- Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119. doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1