I picked this up from a friend who runs a bakery. They told me the rule was for the back kitchen — if a task takes less than five minutes, do it on the spot. Wipe the counter. Switch the trays. Don't write it down. Don't add it to the list. Just go.
The first time I tried this in my own life I thought I was going to drown in tiny tasks. The opposite happened. Within a week the pile of "stuff to deal with" on my desk shrank by something like 80%. The list got shorter not because I worked harder but because most things on it were never list-worthy in the first place. They were just stuff I hadn't done yet.
Here's the trick that gets missed though: the rule isn't about speed, it's about decision-fatigue. Every time you write something on a list you're paying twice — once to remember it, once to do it. Skipping the list is a way of underwriting your own attention.
Caveat: it doesn't work in meetings. It doesn't work when you're tired. And it doesn't work for anything where the cost of a mistake is high. But for the daily thicket of two-minute things — emails, dishes, replies, paperwork — it cuts through.
Try it for a week. See what your list looks like at the end.
Leave a comment