You’ve got something you need to do but you’ve been putting it off. Maybe it’s unpleasant. Maybe you’re not ready. Maybe you’re not sure you can do a good job.

It doesn’t matter why you’re procrastinating. All that matters is that you’re not doing something you know you need to do.

There are many techniques for dealing with procrastination but one is about as simple as it gets. It’s called the ‘5 Second Rule’ and it goes like this:

As soon as you have an urge to do something or the recognition that you need to do it, start doing it within the next 5 seconds.

It’s like pulling off a bandage. Don’t think about it, do it and get it over with.

Since this is a habit you’re trying to develop, you might need a little help. Try a “five-second countdown”. As a kid, when I was tired and didn’t want to get out of a warm bed on a cold morning, I would do a countdown–5, 4, 3, 2, 1-and then spring out of bed.

What can I say, it worked.

Another technique for dealing with procrastination goes by a similar name. It’s the ‘5-minute rule’. Here, you commit to doing the task for just 5 minutes.

You can do just about anything for 5 minutes. Then you can turn your attention to something else. “I’m just going to work on this file for 5 minutes; then I’ll watch that new cat video”.

What frequently happens, of course, is that once you begin (and see that it’s not as bad as you thought and it feels good to make some progress), you’ll want to continue. 5 minutes turns into 15 or 30.

Use the 5-second rule and 5-minute rule together and you might be amazed at what you get done.

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