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There\u2019s a great book called The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage <\/em>by Mel Robbins – where she talks about the importance of taking action within 5 seconds of an idea. This is because \u201cyour brain kills the idea\u201d as Mel Robbins puts it. The \u2018killing\u2019 of the idea can appear differently among different people: anxiety, self-doubt, laziness, forgetfulness, distractions to name a few.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

There\u2019s another good book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity<\/em> 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

I tweaked and combined the two rules and came up with 5-by-5 rule:<\/p>\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n

Lazy plan: If you cannot start in the first 5 seconds, count another 5 second to try to start\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

If you are still unable to, write it down so you can do it whenever you are ready to.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

I use the 5-by-5 rule a couple of times a day because there\u2019s always something to do and I almost always need to fall back on the Lazy Plan. And many times, even the Lazy Plan doesn\u2019t work and I am satisfied with just writing it down on my notes app.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Some 5-by-5 Actions examples:\u00a0<\/h3>\n\n

\n
1. Washing a plate\/mug<\/li>\n
2. Exercising\u00a0<\/li>\n
3. Journaling<\/li>\n
4. Folding clothes<\/li>\n
5. Painting\/sketching<\/li>\n
6. Dancing to a song<\/li>\n
7. Making grocery lists\u00a0<\/li>\n
8. Sending quick emails\u00a0<\/li>\n
9. Texting family and friends\u00a0<\/li>\n
10. Going on a walk<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n

    
    
    Bibliography\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

    
    Robbins, Mel. The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage \/{U200B}<\/em>. Savio Republic, 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

    
    Allen, Daniel. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity<\/em>. Little Brown Book Group, 2015.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

    
    Photo by William Farlow<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There\u2019s 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 \u201cyour brain kills the idea\u201d as Mel Robbins puts it. The \u2018killing\u2019 of the idea …<\/p>\n

    5-by-5 Rule: A Productivity Hack for Taking Actions<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"enabled","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-productivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tabassumshama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tabassumshama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tabassumshama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tabassumshama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tabassumshama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2296"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tabassumshama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2317,"href":"https:\/\/tabassumshama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2296\/revisions\/2317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tabassumshama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tabassumshama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tabassumshama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tabassumshama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}