Increase your productivity: The 2 Minute Rule

David Allen wrote an amazing book on productivity, Getting Things Done, which made him a best-selling author.

What David Allen has to say about his 2 minute rule: I have a two-minute rule that says: If you determine an action can be done in two minutes, you actually should do it right then because it’ll take longer to organize it and review it than it would be to actually finish it the first time you notice it. If you don’t avoid the question about what’s the next step, lots of two minute items could be done right then. Now, there are many times that you have a next step that’s going to take longer amount of time, like drafting some big new spreadsheet. You wouldn’t want to do that in two minutes. It’s a good idea to keep a whole lot of little things to do when you get those strange little windows of time, like clean up old e-mails, or purge some of your files. There’s a lot of things around me to do when I get a weird little window of time and when I don’t have a lot of energy. Let’s say I finished a big phone call and I don’t have another one for seven minutes, I’m likely to just be cleaning spam out of my e-mails or you know purging a file, or perhaps going and getting a cup of coffee.

The rule is super simple to implement:

- If it takes less than two minutes, then start right away