5-second rule: How to stop procrastination

Delaying things and putting unnecessary strain on them is your specialty? Then the 5 second rule could significantly improve your life.

No desire to tidy up, not enough courage to ask your supervisor for a conversation and no brilliant idea what you could write to your girlfriend after you had been out of contact for so long and you suddenly longed for her again. So you leave it. Until one day the disorder in your apartment, the dissatisfaction in your job and the longing for your old girlfriend torment you so much that there is no other way and you have to do something. Unfortunately, it is often twice as difficult and you have wasted time.

This is the case with procrastination or defermentitis. It prevents us from following our impulses and doing things right away, just to torture us and make life difficult. Fortunately, we don't have to put up with it: with the 5-second rule, we can train ourselves to procrastination – or at least try it.

How does the 5 second rule work?

The 5-second rule was developed by the American author and motivational trainer Mel Robbins ("5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 … Go! The 5-second rule") and it works very simply: If we feel an impulse to do something, we count down from 5 and start after 1. For example: "I would have to tidy up my table, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – let's go!". Or"I would like to write to my old school friend. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – dear Isette, I hope you are well! I think of you and would be happy to call again. How about Wednesday night? Love from!". Finished. Not a long thought and definitely not lugging things around with you. Just count backwards and do.

Inspired by a rocket

Mel Robbins swears by this method after trying it out and changing her life. "When I was 41, my life was a mess," she writes on her website. Unemployed, marital problems, self-confidence in the basement. "I wanted to change, but couldn't bring myself to do it." One of the aspects that prevented her from doing so: "There was always an excuse."

A television commercial with a rocket gave her the idea of ​​the countdown. "I thought, what if, instead of thinking about it for a long time when I rang the alarm clock, I just got up like a rocket just took off at launch?" 5-4-3-2-1 closed the gap between thinking and doing, she continues. The more things she tackled and done, the more confident she became.

Can it really work?

From a psychological or neurological point of view, Mel Robbin's method makes perfect sense: First, the counting distracts us from hesitating and looking for reasons not to follow an impulse (if you're particularly intelligent, you might be able to count on Swahili as a precaution …). Second, the countdown sets us up for something to happen. And thirdly, it is easier for us to react to a specific signal ("1") than to a vague intent ("I would like to …", "I should …"). So with the 5-second rule we ultimately trick ourselves, more precisely the side of us that brakes and makes us struggle.

Still sounds too easy to work? Well, then it's definitely too easy not to try it at least once

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