Two Minute Tasks"

Posted Sunday, May 5, 2024 by Sri. Tagged TROPE

I probably first came across the idea of two minute tasks from David Allen's seminal productivity-process book Getting Things Done way back in the day. His system is designed to reduce the anxiety of not knowing what you are doing or what you should be working on, systematically categorizing "actions" into buckets that have particular processing rules that you can follow. One of the buckets are the tasks that you estimate to take two minutes or less.

In my case, I find two-minute tasks helpful to not feel trapped by a project or responsibility. Rather than having a big daily plan that I track, I now identify actions that can be completed in two minutes or so as a way to get immersed. Once I start a hairy task, I am usually find and can keep working on it by inducing curiosity or running tiny experiments to maintain momentum.