👋 Hey there
Over the last week, I found myself procrastinating and hesitating a lot more than usual. Waking up late, skipping gym sessions, reading and feeling self-conscious to speak up in meetings at work. If you noticed, I even missed my regular newsletter publishing schedule!
Thankfully I caught myself before falling into a negative rut and decided to take more accountability.
I started using one of my favourite productivity techniques called the Five-Second Rule, which I picked up from Mel Robbin’s book with the same name, and voila! Within a week of fighting myself to execute it, I was back to my productive self, getting things done like there’s no tomorrow.
The Five-Second Rule is very straightforward yet deadly. Here’s the idea behind it:
- Whenever you find yourself procrastinating, hesitating or fearful of doing something you know you should, start counting down from 5.
- When you’re done, you do the thing. No excuses. That’s it!
Why does this work so well?
- It short-circuits you from being stuck in your negative thoughts to being in action. Since your brain can only work on one task at a time, it cannot think of all the disastrous and impossible scenarios you’d otherwise picture in your head while counting down.
- It builds mental toughness and courage, which rewires your brain to live more fearlessly over time.
- It removes all possibility of living a life full of regrets. Do you want to be on your deathbed thinking of all the things you wanted to do but were too afraid to try?
But just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. You’ll still find it annoyingly difficult to execute the first 5-10 times. But trust me, the feeling of getting the things done you planned to do is well worth it and makes it easier every time going forward.
So what are you waiting for? Say 5-4-3-2-1 and do the thing!
Regretting something you did is far better than regretting something you didn’t.
To getting things done 👊
Tanmay
😍 My Favourite Links
📃 Article – This article by Rob Walling is one of the best bootstrapping resources I’ve found, which talks about the “Stair Step Approach” to start your own online bootstrapped business – minimising risk by gradually picking up required skills and knowledge. This will be my go-to strategy if I ever get around to starting my own business.
🎥 Video – I loved the concept of “Compression Progress” in this one from David Perell, which talks about the value of writing as a way of condensing the world’s knowledge by making it more accessible and actionable.
🎤 Podcast – I watched this exciting episode with one of my favourite bloggers, Nat Eliason, on the Mind Meld podcast. He talks about his journey of building a nicheless six-figure blog and how it led him to other exciting entrepreneurship opportunities. You’ll love it if you’re looking to start writing online or are interested in entrepreneurship.
📚 Book – I started reading Die With Zero by Bill Perkins, a counterintuitive personal finance book about setting up your finances so that you die with zero dollars left in your bank account. It is an excellent read for chronic savers and gratification delayers who sometimes forget to enjoy themselves with their money.
💭 Quote of The Week
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
— Henry David Thoreau
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