The two-minute start

What a two-minute start is

A two-minute start has three parts: one small step, a timer, and an end time you can read. You do the step until the end time. Then you decide whether to stop or go on.

The step is the kind that fits in two minutes without hurrying. Open the email. Write one line. Put five books in a box. It is a visit to the task, not an attempt at the whole task.

The two minutes belong to the step, not to the task. When the block ends, the task is owed nothing more. That is what makes it possible to begin on a day when the whole thing looks enormous.

Why a short block helps

Two minutes is long enough to do something real, such as open a file and write a sentence. It is short enough that you can see the end from the beginning.

That visible end is the point. Most of the weight of a task sits in the open question of how long it will take. A block with an end time answers the question before you begin, and the answer is small.

It also removes a second decision. You are not choosing how hard to work or how long to go on. The block has already answered both, so the only thing left is the step in front of you.

How to run one

1. Write the step as a verb with an object: 'Open the email to the landlord.'
2. Look at the clock and add two minutes. Say the time: 'Until 3:14.'
3. Close one thing that is not the task. One tab is enough.
4. Start the timer and do only the step.
5. When the time ends, put your hands down.

In Started, Sam sits beside you while a ring counts down, and the end time stays on screen. A kitchen timer works too. What matters is that the end is written down where you can see it.

To choose the step, pick the one that needs the fewest things to be true. An email you can already see beats a document you must first find. On another day the document may be the right one.

What to do when the time is up

You have three moves, and each is fine.

• Stop. A started task is different from an unstarted one, even if it only got two minutes.
• Take two more. Set a new end time and say it out loud, so it is a fresh visit and not a drift.
• Write the next step on a note, then stop. This makes tomorrow's start nearly free.

Stopping on purpose is part of the method. If stopping were punished, the next start would cost more.

If you take two more, notice what you are doing it for. Another block because the work has become easy is fine. Another block because the stop feels uncomfortable deserves a second look.

When the step is still too big

Sometimes you set the timer and nothing moves. Shrink the step, and shrink the block with it. A one-minute block that says 'Open it and look' is a real start.

Techniques for cutting a step down are on the page about how to start a task you keep putting off. If the moment before starting is the hard part for you, this guide on ADHD task paralysis describes it in more detail.

You can also change the step without changing the task. 'Write the report' becomes 'List the headings', then 'Type the first heading'. Each of those fits inside two minutes.

Coming back after a gap

After a few days away, do not review what you skipped. Open the note, read the step, and run one block. The count of starts goes up by one, and the gap is not part of the record.

The same two minutes work on day one and on day thirty.

Some people pair the block with a fixed cue, such as the first coffee or the moment the laptop opens. A cue attaches the start to something that already happens, so there is nothing to remember. If the cue gets skipped for a week, nothing is owed. Use it the next time it comes round.