I have been on a vacation for the past three days now. I was going to take a complete break from all my stuff. But later at the very last moment realized that it really took efforts to build consistency with Youtube after a very long time. So decided to do it anyway. And made one of the classic Amey Karhade "Filler Video".
These videos are the ones I make to not break the streak. They are not as such value-adding videos but I have to upload them so I don't break the consistency.
This is a practice I picked up from the book "Atomic Habits" by James Clear. Now if you have seen the video then you probably know what I am talking about. But if you haven't, check it out. In this blog, I will be talking in detail about it!
What is the 5-minute rule?
When we try to create a habit we are always super energetic about it the first few days. The energy is like nothing else. We do a lot of work. I would say we overdo things. Which feels really great at the beginning but drags us to the saturation point just that quickly. What next?
Well! The 5 - minute rule to the rescue. How would you like it if I say if you don't feel like it, just do it for 5 minutes? That's right. Now, I am sure you will feel the next 5 minutes to be the hardest ever. But then again, It's just 5 minutes! Put a timer on your phone for 5 minutes and do that task. If you are reading a book just read a page. If you learning to play the guitar just practice one chord. Break those tasks into finer parts and do just one of them.
There are two possible outcomes if you follow it:
You will do it for 5-minutes and be satisfied with the fact that you didn't skip a day.
Those 5-minutes will be converted to 10, 15, or even 30 minutes. Sometimes, you don't feel like it until you start.
The 5-minute rule can be seen as one more technique in addition to the 2-Day rule I talked about in one of the previous blogs. I personally use both of them and I feel anyone trying to build a habit should.
My Experience
I used this technique most when I was trying to get back in the habit of reading. I had decided I will read at least one page a day! The first few days I read like 10 pages. Then there were days when I read exactly one page. And then there were days I read 4-5 chapters at a stretch. This is how I used it to get back into the reading habit.
I based my 30-Day challenge on this rule itself. The goal was to write at least 1000 words a day. When I have a topic in mind I can write those 1000 words in under 10 minutes. I am sure you observed that some of the blogs were very close to 1000 words and some even went up to 5000 words.
The main outcome being that though there were days I did not feel like writing, I showed up because I know I can write 1000 words without even thinking way too hard.
Haha! This blog is almost 3000 words! I hope you get the point I am trying to make. Just do it for 5 minutes, but don't skip a day! This is Day 13 of the 30 - Day writing challenge! And Thank you for reading my blogs and liking them. It really motivates me! I will see you tomorrow!
DAY(13/30)