The 5-10-15 Method
How to get started when you're scared of becoming indicted
I recently made up my own modification of the Pomodoro method for getting started on a non-preferred task. The original technique invented by an Italian university student in the late 1980s involves setting a timer (it doesn’t have to be a tomato timer, of course) to work for 25 minutes, then taking a 5-10 minute break. One can then repeat as many “pomodoros” as they can manage in one work session.
I recently had to tackle the beastly job of going through some accounting for an outside party that would end up taking me over 20 hours. (Had I been working steadily on it throughout the year, it probably would have been a lot less.) The assignment had a deadline, and since I do not usually have more than a couple hours a week I can devote to work beyond child- and home-care tasks, I was pretty stressed out.
Needless to say, I did not want to face this task. I didn’t know how or where to start. Then I remembered the Pomodoro method. Work for 25 minutes, then take a 5-10 minute break.
But when I realized that I couldn’t bear the thought of doing 25, or even 15, minutes of this work, I decided to make it smaller. I set a timer for 5 minutes. I can do an unpleasant, scary thing for five minutes. Having to “focus” (the alternative, that is, not focusing, for five minutes, is actually pretty unappealing) for “only 5 minutes” made it doable.
When the timer rang, I had found my entry point and was ready to do more. I hadn’t gotten very far, but far enough, in the 5 minutes, so this time I set the timer for 10 minutes. When the 10-minute timer rang, I set it for 15 minutes.
Painlessly, I accomplished 30 minutes of focused work on my project, as well as gained the confidence that I could continue to make progress in these incremental chunks.
I am very proud of having developed this strategy to help with task avoidance and task initiation. The 5-10-15 Method provides a gentle on-ramp to get started on something when I’m feeling resistance1.
I felt better about my resistance to “getting started” when I recently read David Allen say that it’s often the most sensitive and creative people who procrastinate on things. We imagine all the things that could go wrong when we work on something, and somehow blow up “doing our taxes” to “I’m going to jail.” It’s true. “INDICTED!”
I loooove this idea! I don't think I fully realized until reading this that the traditional pomodoro method doesn't always work great for me either, for the same reason! (25 minutes feels like an eternity when I'm setting out to do a dreaded/hard/boring/stressful task.) I'm about to give this a try!!
This is so helpful! I love the pomodoro method, but sometimes even 25 minutes is overwhelming, like you said! I like the idea of just starting with 5 minutes--totally manageable! Once I do get into the work, I struggle to stop--do you adhere pretty rigidly to the breaks if you are on a roll?