SurplusGamer's Thought Limbo

6th April 2011

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Planning for Slackers

Richard Wiseman’s book 59 Seconds is full of neat little pieces of science-based advice, but the one that stuck with me most is the idea that it’s better to plan to do something for 2 minutes only, rather than a long amount of time.

The thought is that it’s the starting that makes it hard. If you know you’ve set aside 2 hours to do some writing, or a whole day then the tendency is to put it off, make excuses and generally find the activity daunting. But with 2 minutes, it’s suddenly a quick job that you might as well tick off the list… and a wonderful way to trick your brain.

You see, your brain doesn’t like to leave a task you’ve started unfinished, so you’re very likely after 2 minutes of work to decide to do ‘just a little bit more.’ You’ll know this feeling if you’re a gamer who’s ever thought ‘just one more level’ or a reader who says they ‘just want to finish this chapter’ and finds themselves losing track of time.

On the other hand, if it’s really not happening, if you have earnestly worked at the thing for 2 minutes and are not making any progress or feeling a desire to continue, you can legitimately stop. Then you are guilt-free and safe in the knowledge that you have fulfilled your obligation. At least in theory, there’s no way to lose in this scheme; even if you work at something and find you can never get wrapped up in it enough to get past the 2 minutes, you’ve at least learned that it’s probably not for you.

My prediction, based on some initial successful forays, is that if I pledge to do something I want to get done for 2 minutes and 2 minutes a day, I will end up getting much more than that done. And so, here’s what I’m going to stick to:

2 minutes composing music EVERY DAY.

This, of course, is within reason. Some weekends perhaps we’ll have guests and I won’t have a moment to myself, but most days, even busy ones, I have at least 2 minutes to set aside that I could be making music with. In other words, I’m only commiting to 14 minutes of music-making per week. A little over 0.1% of my total time. A little less than 0.2% of my waking time. A little over 0.4% of my effective spare time per week is the pass mark.

Will I make more music this way? Let’s see.