Emotionally Intelligent People Embrace the 5-Minute Rule

There I sat, as ordinary, with a ton of issues to do on my desk. Three main initiatives simply staring me within the face. A committee assembly I wanted to organize for. Three articles I nonetheless needed to write, with the deadlines rapidly approaching.

So, why on earth was I watching Elon Musk’s Saturday Evening Dwell monologue on YouTube?

The reply is tied to the rationale why many people procrastinate (possibly even why you are studying this text proper now). When confronted with a tough task-or lots of them-we simply develop into overwhelmed. We search solace within the type of extra nice actions, people who distract us from that feeling of overwhelm-ed-ness.

The one drawback is, the extra solace we really feel, the extra we need to keep away from doing the work.

The longer we keep away from doing the work, the extra anxious we get in regards to the impending doom that awaits, ought to we not get all of our duties finished.

And, after all, the extra anxious we get, the larger the prospect that our duties do not get done-making our scenario a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

However I am right here to inform you there is a option to break this vicious cycle. It is a method that is based on the ideas of emotional intelligence, the flexibility to determine, perceive, and handle feelings successfully.

Better of all, it is easier than you may expect-as you’ll be able to inform from its title:

(For those who benefit from the classes on this article, make sure to join my free emotional intelligence course, the place I share an analogous rule each week that can enable you make feelings give you the results you want, as a substitute of in opposition to you.)

Within the aforementioned scenario, the mind is overwhelmed with the anticipation of attempting to finish the duty in entrance of you: how lengthy it should take and the way laborious will probably be.

However this is the factor: Big, difficult duties normally aren’t accomplished in a single sitting. Reasonably, they’re greatest dealt with by chipping away at them, one small piece at a time.

This is the place the five-minute-rule is available in.

It really works like this: You power your self to work on a process for simply 5 minutes, with the understanding which you could stop after 5 minutes if you happen to like.

With this new situation, the mind is “tricked” into now seeing your gargantuan process very otherwise.

It is as if the mind says to itself:

Oh wow. 5 minutes is nothing. That is much less time than the YouTube video we have been about to look at.

We are able to deal with 5 minutes.

In fact, as a rule, when you full the primary 5 minutes, you will be so absorbed by the duty, you will hold going.

However even when not, the five-minute-rule has already helped you to cross a significant hurdle:

As a result of getting began is commonly the toughest half.

So, the subsequent time you are sitting at your desk, together with your process listing angrily staring again at you when you waste the morning away, keep in mind this straightforward little emotionally clever trick.