The 2-minute productivity rule

Hey friends,

There’s a good book called Getting Things Done – The Art of Stress-free Productivity by David Allen. It’s widely seen as the bible on productivity.

There’s a simple concept in it called the 2-minute rule. It goes something like:

If a task will take less than 2 minutes, do it right now. If it will take longer, write it down.

I think about this several times a day, whenever I notice a dirty mug on my desk, or some camera gear that’s in the wrong place, or if I remember that I had to bank transfer some money to a friend, or pay a bill of some sort.

Every time, I feel that moment of Resistance, when I think “it’s fine, I can do this later”.

But sometimes, I remind myself of the two-minute rule. I tell myself that if I could follow this rule consistently, my life would be much more pleasant, and my brain less cluttered with little jobs that detract from the bigger picture.

About 50% of the time, this internal argument works and I get off my backside and do the thing. I’m still working on the other 50%.

Have a great week!

Ali

Stuff I enjoyed this week

1 – Podcast – I recently discovered Tyler Stalman’s podcast where he discusses photography, cinematography and technology with guests. I’ve found that the discussions are often pitched at a level of ‘pro’ slightly above my own, which is a really nice place to be because there’s so much I learn from each episode. If you’re interested in the realm of content creation, you’ll probably get a lot of value from it.

2 – Book – I started reading The Complete Guide To Property Investment this week and ended up staying up till like 2am every night because it was so enthralling (not even being sarcastic here).

Kindle Highlight of the Week

Transmit good news to your family. Tell them the good that happened today. Recall the amusing, pleasant things you experienced and let the unpleasant things stay buried. Spread good news. It’s pointless to pass on the bad. It only makes your family worry, makes them nervous. Bring home some sunlight every day.

From The Magic of Thinking Big by David J Schwartz.

I’ve realised that too much of the stuff I think about (‘stuff I discovered this week’, ‘monthly favourites’ etc) is based around finding new things. So from now on, this weekly email will have a ‘Kindle Highlight of the Week’ at the end where I semi-randomly pick a quote from my hundreds of Kindle highlights to share. Hopefully you guys can get some value out of words far more intelligent than my own.