Our brains have evolved to conserve energy. Given an option between two tasks, say: learning a skill or scrolling through social media, usually it chooses, the easier task: scrolling. The outcome of taking up easier tasks repeatedly is well established. And this leads to more bad decisions on the same day. Let me tell you how I beat this slippery slope situation almost every day.

Let’s say you have achieved a streak of successfully doing a task for days and there is a slip of a day. In no time one day turns into days, then into weeks…. Relatable? Well, when this happens to me all the time, I am consumed by gnawing guilt. It is not like I don’t want to jump back onto my streak, but it is tough. At the moment it is easy to sit back and say ‘will start tomorrow’. And there is a streak of unsuccessful days growing.

I learnt this unpleasant streak can be broken, no matter how big it is, with a simple act called the ‘two-minute rule’. All you have to do is take up the desired task and keep doing it for 2 minutes. It is way easier to push yourself after those first 2 minutes. The brain is not overwhelmed by the mountain of tasks. This for starters eliminates the initial friction to begin a task and encourages continuing (Read more about ‘Initial friction’ here). As the task at hand is tiny, it is easy to convince ourselves to just take the first step towards the right direction. Work done in this time frame kept me away from guilt, as it keeps up with consistency. Hence I didn’t break my streak. After some practice, I was and will be able to push myself to cross the finish line, even on the laziest day.

The concept can be implemented in this way and can be used to trick yourself into waking up early and setting your alarm two minutes earlier each day until you reach the desired time. Another idea, this helps you become an overachiever, after two minutes and the task is finished do a little bit extra, that is an additional 2 minutes. And there you go, from achieving nothing to more than planned. It may not necessarily be two minutes. Customise it to your liking or the nature of the task at hand. When I work out I push myself for 10 seconds extra. Those 10 seconds over days culminate in a whole new level of difference.

Dear Reader, write to me in the comments below how did u like this blog. I will be looking forward to it.

Until next time. 🙂