How To Quit Procrastinating And Just Get Started

I hear it every week— the stress in someone’s voice… the tension in their shoulders from a big gray cloud of a project looming over their head, on which they just can’t get started. The stress and the overwhelm start feel so familiar, that the narrative in their head of “I just can’t get to it until this… or I just don’t have enough time to get it done…” becomes louder and more clear than the picture of them in PEACE from having accomplished it.

If this sounds anything like you, here’s my tip. It’s so simple you’ll most likely think to yourself, okay now why didn’t I think of that?!

If you can’t think about completing the full task, and just knocking the full thing out… Are you able to think about you committing just 15 minutes of your time to it? You heard me, just 15 minutes.

Grab your watch or your phone, or even a good ol’ egg timer, and set it to 15 minutes. Next, do as much as you can in that time frame! At the end of the time, chances are your brain will have had a nice little dopamine hit (making you feel happy) from already accomplishing the task you set for yourself. I’m not talking about the old task of completing the project as a whole— I’m talking about the new task, the doable task, of working on your project for 15 minutes!

For many people, this simple mind tip is enough to get their motivation momentum flowing and they’ll feel happy to continue working past the 15 minutes now that they’ve found their groove. For others, the 15-minute tip helps them feel satisfied with making progress at all, thus making it a little easier to come back the next day to implement the 15-minute tip again. Either way, you’re moving step by step toward your goals which is what matters to you most!

If you try this tip and it’s helpful for you, share this post with a friend of yours whom you know has been putting off something important to them too. I think we can all do just about anything for 15 minutes.