The "2-Minute Rule" in the workplace
In Getting Things Done (GTD) we have the simplest of productivity enhancing tools. It's called the 2-minute Rule. The process is this, If something can be done in 2 minutes or less it should be done now rather than later.
This could be say an email to read or send, a task to be completed, a thought to be written down, answering a question from a colleague.
It's a very powerful idea. Our minds can roughly gauge what 2 minutes is, and if we think we can do it within that timeframe we are then going to crave the reward of completing it. A little dopamine high of crossing it off our mental list.
Freeing up headspace quickly
It sounds so simple and a great "life hack". Our minds want to complete all those open loops spinning round our head, and if we can close a loop there and then, then happy days. It helps keep momentum on projects, and gets small low level tasks done and out of the way quickly
However, it’s not always that easy and straight forward to implement.
What happens when you leave your email system open. There'll be dozens of 2-minuters pinging your way randomly throughout the day (and night). The same for instant chat like Skype and social media message apps like Whatsapp, Workplace, Teams etc.
If you like to be collaborative and available all day then that’s fine. But beware, if you’ve got actual work to do, I mean real work that’s going to add value, that’s going to get you completing your projects on time and reaching your goals, do you want to spend your life on 2-minuters.
Test it out for yourself
If you’ve not had a play with the 2-minute rule, why not give it try for a week long experiment. Have a think about the collaborative systems that you use, and if there are too many 2-minuters for you to handle whilst dong your high level focussed work. Could you maybe take more control of your communication applications and devices, conciously turning them off for periods of time?
This blog is roughly a 2 minute read. Hopefully you didn’t stick it on a "read later" list, and you got to this point a couple of minutes after first finding it…..:)