This is a weird concept. To live life 15 minutes at a time. Shouldn’t we live one day at a time? I say NO! I love time blocking. I find that I am super productive when I’m working against deadlines and when I have a certain amount of time allocated to a certain task.
Let me tell you a little bit more about me. I am a super procrastinator. I don’t always look like I’m procrastinating. In fact, I will be doing exactly the task at hand. So what do I mean? Well, I will do what I have to do but where a task could take me 15-20 minutes it will take me an hour to complete. Like dinner in the evenings, or bathing the kids, or showering at the gym.
I hate this. I want to do things quickly and in my mind I am, but I really am not.
The problem
I take way too long to get shit done. I take too long because I am not only doing that one thing. I am cooking and cleaning and answering emails, and, and, and. I won’t just buckle down and finish one task at a time. I am easily distracted.
The solution – time blocking
Time blocking. I have used a time blocking system before where I blocked out time slots for certain things. I would give myself 30 minutes for lunch, 30 minutes for email, 15 minutes for social media, and 1 hour to record content. This worked so well. I would schedule everything into my calendar the day before (some days would be put on repeat every week) and then set a reminder to go off 5 minutes before. This meant that 5 minutes before I should be done checking emails I could already mentally prepare for the next task and quickly finish up what I was doing. This was fantastic.
How do 15 minutes fit into this?
Well, I haven’t been time blocking much lately because I have not quite figured out the perfect routine for myself yet. I often find myself planning the day ahead only to get swept away in other important things and before I know it I haven’t stuck to my plan for the day at all. So, I have decided to still have my list and a rough idea of how I want my day to go but then decide to do a task and set a 15-minute timer on my phone. I have to get the task done within those 15 minutes and then move onto my next task.
This is a little extreme
I do think this may be a little extreme, however, I have heard of so many people writing novels in just 10 minutes a day. I developed my 5-minute pilates sessions where you burn and want to scream from the pain. So why not 15 minutes.
Setting a time to a task forces you to focus. Setting a time limit forces you to just get things done and prevents you from over thinking or having your mind wander. 15 minutes is an easy time limit to stick to as it’s not too long and not too short. It’s the perfect amount of time and when you actually do give yourself just 15 minutes to do something you realise how much time that actually is.
So here’s to 15 minutes. I’m going to try slot out my time for the rest of this week. I’ll definitely share my progress over social media too.
Why don’t you give it a try? You have nothing to lose, other than 15 minutes.
P.S: I wrote this post in 15 minutes.
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