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Wayne Pepper
The Power of the Two Minute Rule
If you're familiar with the GTD workflow diagram, you know that a key element is the two minute rule. Simply stated, once a next action is identified, it gets deferred or delegated if it can't be done in less than two minutes. If it's a task that can be done in less than two minutes it's completed immediately, with the thinking that it would take longer to stack, file, track, and bring back the item than it will to simply handle the next action right then. We're told by some of our clients that this guide is one of the most powerful pieces to our work. Why is that?
My own personal experience tells me that there are several benefits to abiding by this rule. First, while we are processing new inputs (email, voicemail, meeting notes, etc.) we'll quickly clear a good amount off our plate by simply taking care of the item right then and there. There's nothing so satisfying as watching a stack decrease as it's quickly being handled. Unfortunately not everything is handled in less than two minutes and many items will need to be deferred or delegated. As David Allen has mentioned, this points out the slightly counter-intuitive aspect of our work. We spend time processing an action, teeing it up to be handled, but if it's more than two minutes we're encouraged to resist the impulse to go handle the thing right then and there. Of course this implies that we need to bring in a quality of discipline in our lives, and to me the discipline pays huge dividends in that once I populate my lists with next actions, I can now start to make priority decisions.
Further, I find another benefit to the Two Minute Rule: if I determine that an action will take more than two minutes and needs to be deferred, I will sometimes decide that it's simply not worth parking in my system. In other words, it's worth doing if it will take less than two minutes of my time, but not worth it if it's more than two minutes and will take up precious space in my action lists. I'll either delete it, or park it over in Someday Maybe. In fact, I'm always looking for what I can delete. Any time something has become irrelevant or simply not worthy of my attention, I give myself the freedom to delete it so that I can pay greater attention to higher priority items in my system.
We recently placed a piece of software on our website which creates a two minute timer on your computer screen. At first I thought it would interfere with my work, but now I have it up all the time while I'm processing. I've heard that people are notoriously poor estimators of the time it takes to complete a task, and this tool has proved it to me. "Oh sure" I say to myself, "this will take less than two minutes." In timing my actions however, I'm finding that I'm often wrong, that tasks take longer than I guessed. After the software counts down the two minutes, a button comes up and asks "what's your next action?", meaning that it's time to park your activity because it's pulling you out of processing. This will help tremendously in not getting caught in "rabbit trails." A rabbit trail is getting caught up in the details or issues present with a task is such a way that it distracts us completely from processing our next item.
I encourage each of you to diligently adhere to the two minute rule in your workflow processing to both clear items quickly off your plate and to keep you focused on processing "In" to zero every twenty four to forty eight hours.
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