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5-by-5 Rule: A Productivity Hack for Taking Actions – Tabassum Shama

5-by-5 Rule: A Productivity Hack for Taking Actions

There’s a great book called The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage by Mel Robbins – where she talks about the importance of taking action within 5 seconds of an idea. This is because “your brain kills the idea” as Mel Robbins puts it. The ‘killing’ of the idea can appear differently among different people: anxiety, self-doubt, laziness, forgetfulness, distractions to name a few. 


There’s another good book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. In the book, the author talks about the 2 minute rule: If something you need to do takes 2 minutes or less, do it right then and there otherwise, make a note of it. 


I tweaked and combined the two rules and came up with 5-by-5 rule:


If there is a task you need/want to do and it takes less than 5 minutes, then start it in the next 5 seconds.


Lazy plan: If you cannot start in the first 5 seconds, count another 5 second to try to start 


If you are still unable to, write it down so you can do it whenever you are ready to. 


The Lazy Plan serves 2 purposes: a. Gives you more time to start up the action and b. Build rapport and trust with yourself because you tried again. 


I use the 5-by-5 rule a couple of times a day because there’s always something to do and I almost always need to fall back on the Lazy Plan. And many times, even the Lazy Plan doesn’t work and I am satisfied with just writing it down on my notes app. 

Even if I fail to write it down, at least I know I attempted to take action twice, not once and thought about writing it down. 



Some 5-by-5 Actions examples: 

  1. Washing a plate/mug
  2. Exercising 
  3. Journaling
  4. Folding clothes
  5. Painting/sketching
  6. Dancing to a song
  7. Making grocery lists 
  8. Sending quick emails 
  9. Texting family and friends 
  10. Going on a walk



Bibliography 


Robbins, Mel. The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage /{U200B}. Savio Republic, 2017. 


Allen, Daniel. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Little Brown Book Group, 2015.          


Photo by William Farlow on Unsplash