Get Things Done in Just 10 Minutes

by Dee Jones

We all have them. Those projects we tell ourselves we'll get to…eventually. And we mean it when we say it. But somehow we never even get started, and those projects remain ignored and rejected.

Or maybe we do start. But we don’t work on them often enough to see any real progress. And, after a while, that lack of noticeable progress kills our motivation to keep going. And the poor project gets abandoned, never to be touched again.

Part of the problem is that these projects don’t seem critical. After all, no one else is really counting on you to organize your filing cabinets, or clean out your messy hall closet. Still, actually doing these things would have benefits...which is why they’re on your mental “want to do, but never get around to” list in the first place. But, with all of the other, “more important” stuff going on in your life, it’s easy for these tasks to fall through the cracks.

Well, what if I told you there was a way to start taking a serious chunk out of those projects? And all it will take is 10 minutes of your time.

Okay, It’s Not Just 10 Minutes

Full disclosure. No one is expecting you to clean out an entire basement in 10 minutes. But I bet you can commit to spending just 10 minutes a day on getting your basement in order.

A lot of organizing advice suggests you set aside a block of time every day (say thirty minutes or an hour) to work on that project that’s been nagging at you. And, if you spent an hour a day cleaning out your basement, you’ll definitely see fast progress.

But here’s the thing. Thirty to sixty minutes still feels like a lot of time, especially when you have so many other things filling up your busy day. And if it’s a project you’ve been dreading, working on it for an hour every single day just doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun. As a result, you probably won’t do it.

But ten minutes? Ten minutes really does feel like nothing. No matter how busy your day is, being able to find ten free minutes a day actually seems doable. And if it’s a project you’ve been dreading, knowing that you’ll only be working on it for ten minutes makes it much easier to get started.

And getting started is almost always the hardest part.

Moving On

So you’ve decided to spend ten minutes a day cleaning out your closet. Once your ten minutes is up, you’re free to put the project aside and forget about it until the next day.

But here’s the awesome part. There will be some days when you actually feel like working on your project for more than ten minutes...believe it or not. Not only will you realize the project isn’t as bad as you thought it was, you’ll have gotten into a zone, and you won’t want to stop.

It’s actually a little strange. If you tell yourself you have to do something for an hour, every minute can feel like a dreadful chore you can’t wait to escape. But when you tell yourself you can stop after ten minutes, you’ll often end up working on that project for an hour or more with ease. And when you see the progress you’ve made, you’ll look forward to getting back to the project the next day.

Action Steps

If you want to use this tried and true technique to make progress on one of your neglected projects, here’s how you do it.

1. Try to find a block of free time in your daily schedule. Ideally it will be the same time every day, so working on your project will become a habit.
2. Make a list of projects you’ve been meaning to get around to, but never have.
3. Pick something from that list. Starting out, choose the project that will take the least amount of time. The faster you complete this first project, the more eager you’ll be to tackle the next one.
4. When your chosen time arrives, set a timer for ten minutes, and then work on your project until the timer goes off.

When the timer dings, you’re finished with that project for the day. Unless, of course, you really want to keep going.

But here’s where things can get tricky.

To Stop or Not to Stop?

When the timer goes off, really examine how you feel. Do you want to keep going, or do you want to stop?

If you really want to keep going then, by all means, do it. But make sure you really, truly want to.

There will be times when you find yourself thinking, “I really want to stop now but, since I’ve already started, I might as well keep going for another half hour or so.” Which sounds perfectly reasonable in the moment. But this line of thinking will do more harm than good.

If you force yourself to keep going when you really don’t want to, you’ll find it much harder to get started the next time. Why? Because the next time you say, “Okay, let’s work on our project. And, remember, I can stop after ten minutes,” your subconscious will cry out, “Liar! Last time you said we only had to work for ten minutes, but you made us keep going for a whole hour! And I bet you’ll do the same thing today. So I’m going to do everything I can to kill any desire you have to work on that project.”

And it will. And, before you know it, that project will go back to being ignored and neglected.

So ask yourself, “Do I really want to keep going?” If the little voice in your head doesn’t answer with an enthusiastic, “Yes!” Put the project aside for the day, and celebrate the fact that you put in your ten minutes, just like you promised yourself you would.


Committing just ten minutes a day to a project isn’t a revolutionary new technique. It’s just a simple little trick that happens to work.

If you have a list of projects that you never seem to get around to, ten minutes a day is all you need to get one of those projects moving forward. And once you start using this method, you’ll be surprised by how much you can get done in just ten minutes a day.


Have you ever used the “ten minute method” to work on one of your projects? If so, how did it work for you? Leave a comment below and let us know.