050: 2 Minute Rule

 The podcast discusses the "two-minute rule," where tasks taking less than two minutes are completed immediately rather than postponed. By addressing these small tasks promptly, the speaker experienced significant improvements in productivity, clarity of mind, and reliability in relationships. They emphasize finding a balance between addressing small tasks and focusing on larger priorities, utilizing moments of downtime for efficiency. This approach enhances productivity and prevents small tasks from accumulating into overwhelming burdens. 

Connect with Mike Chang:
- Instagram: @mikechangofficial
-Youtube: Mike Chang
- Website: www.flow60.com

Connect with Stephen Yeh:
-Instagram: @iamstephenyeh
-Twitter: @iamstephenyeh

Transcript

Mike: [00:00:00] So a few years ago, I realized I had this habit of putting off small things because I feel like they're small, they're insignificant and not doing them. And I started to realize that these little things started to accumulate and it actually ended up creating bigger issues. So I started to do something that I call the two minute rule.

And that's where if something takes less than two minutes to complete, I drop everything and I do it there on the spot. And ever since I started to do that, things started changing. What appeared to be a small thing, when I end up doing it, created a large ripple effect in so many areas of my life. It started to streamline so many things.

[00:01:00] Because, I started to realize that these little things that I wasn't doing, thinking it's not important I do it later, and it never happens, it, number one,, allowed other people to be able to move forward with their projects, allow people to move forward with certain things that they're working on.

But it just needed me to do that one little thing. Can you send me that link? Can you go and find that thing for me really quick? Can you grab the thing? Can you tell me what that information says? Things that seem to be really small, but when I started doing it and they were able to move forward with their things.

I started to see this ripple effect where my relationships when I'm working with people start to change. People started to see me as somebody that was much more dependable. Somebody that they can count on to get things done. Versus somebody that they can tell you something but They don't feel like you're going to do it.

It's like somebody that they need [00:02:00] to go and constantly remind, remind and remind, they got a hassle. They got to really force you to do something. If you guys know what I mean, I felt that had a really big shift. And the second thing is that all these little things that were my personal tasks is that I needed to do.

Once I started to immediately get them done, my mind actually felt a tremendous amount of clarity and at peace. There's a sense of completion, because when we have all these little tasks in our mind, even though they seem to be insignificant, We either will forget about them or we will try to remember them and they end up filling our mind and not allowing us to focus.

Now, people have told me before, write them down and I would try that. I would go and just write down these little things. But then when I started to look at this list, this list started to build up because I didn't care to do them because they were so insignificant. And I remember when I [00:03:00] used to do this, I looked at this list and I had about 15, 20 things.

And what was just going to take a couple minutes here and there for each was going to take hours now. And because it was going to take hours, it was such a daunting task that I avoided it even more. And all of these little things created ripple effects in my life and the life of everybody else's. And before you know it people just started to, like I mentioned, they started to not depend on me to get things done and that had a really big ripple effect.

In my life. So the two minute rule is really, really simple. Anything that takes less than two minutes to do the moment that you need to do it. The moment that someone asks you, get it done right there on the spot. And now I also face a lot of times where people ask you this and they'll go, Oh, you don't need to do it now.

Just, you know, whenever you get the chance, because they want to be polite. Because they believe that, [00:04:00] yeah, it's not a hurry, you can get it to me whenever, you have the time, because they're asking like a favor. But when I do it right there on the spot, there's like this sense of gratification like instant gratification, they're surprised, number one, most people are surprised because they don't realize I'm going to drop.

What I'm doing. I'm gonna do it right now and get it done for you. Here it is. And also, this starts to change the way that people start to view you. You start to look now as an action taker, as a dependable person, as a person they can trust. And I remember that started to happen. But my only goal was just, I didn't want to accumulate this large list.

So I started to do things on the spot. And it's been life changing. I've been doing this for years now. Now. When things are happening and people ask me to do something, I just, I drop it. I get it done right there. And you guys got to try that out. Two minutes. Okay. Anything less than two minutes. Just get it done.

Stephen: [00:05:00] You know, While you're talking about this two minute rule, I'm just reminded of just going through all these productivity books or self improvement books. And one of the main things that they always say in there, it pretty much goes against everything that you're saying right now. And essentially it's saying like, Hey, go and eat that frog, which is like, Hey, go do your priority things first, before you focus on anything else.

Right. So how do you put these together? Because if you're going to be working on these small things. Where are you going to have the time or energy to do the main things that you need to work on? 

Mike: So that's a really good question because you got to make sure that you're taking care of the big things and you don't want to be caught up doing a whole bunch of small things.

So this is something I actually was dealing with. When I started this out, I found that I'll, there's a lot of little [00:06:00] small things. And then before I know it, I'll spend hours doing a whole bunch of small things. So I started to find a balance to this. When there's something small, I'll go and do it. But if there is a whole bunch of small things, I'm not going to go and do all of the small things when there's something big.

What I would do is, when we're working on a big thing, number one, a lot of times it's energetically draining and challenging. Because it's so big, we have to figure it out, it takes time. So, what I find is, when I have breaks, when I have times that I need to go and move some energy around, and I don't feel like I'm sitting here taking on this big, big task, I will go and knock out this small thing.

So, let's say, if I am working on , this project right now, and somebody comes and asks me, and they go, hey, can you do that thing for me real quick, and I go, okay. Now, at this moment. [00:07:00] If I am in a really good momentum, then I'm not going to break because I don't want to break this momentum. But if I am here kind of bumping my head, trying to figure it out, figure it out, and I can't quite figure it out, I will go, yeah, sure, I'll do it right now.

Now for me, I'm actually taking a break. I'm going to take a short break, a two minute break from this project that I'm working on. So I can go and do this task. But it allows me to have a little separation. So when I come back, I had a chance to move around. I had a chance to move a little energy. So when I come back, I'm a little more refresh.

I'm a little more than the perspective. Now in the same situation, if somebody is constantly asking me, or I'm getting asked by different people as I'm working on this big project, , or this, this important task, then I'm not going to go and constantly break. Usually when we're applying this two minute rule, this is when we are not fully engaged in this big project, when we [00:08:00] have some downtime.

This is where this rule becomes really, really powerful. When we're engaging in something, when we're focused, you only break because you want a little break. You only go and branch off to do this thing if you need breaks. If you are totally in it, . Don't skip out your concentration. But when someone is out doing anything else, when someone is just taking a break, when someone's not really working, they're not engaged in focus in this activity.

And someone goes, Hey, can you do that thing? Oh, sure. I'll do it later and never gets done. That's what I'm talking about. Okay. So we spend so much time not actually fully engaged in projects. We are taking a break. We're checking our phone. We're walking, getting some air, grabbing some food, doing random stuff, a whole bunch of different stuff.

And when we are asked to do small tasks or when there's little things that need to be done, that's what I'm talking about. Get it done right then and there, because the fact is we're not really being productive [00:09:00] anyways. We're just kind of doing nothing. We're just. Checking our phone, doing random things when it's actually much more a better use of our time to knock out small little tasks during that time, because it's amazing how much time and energy we actually spend.

Doing nothing. Okay, doing absolutely nothing. Just randomly talking, randomly checking. There's nothing to really check. We're just browsing. We're just burning time. We're just trying to find a way to unplug our mind, giving our mind some distractions. It's times like that. That we should go and do these little tasks.

Because it's times like that where someone asks us, Hey, can you do this thing? Or someone may be asking us right then and there. Spend that time to go ahead and be productive. And because they're really small tasks, it's not overwhelming. It's not something difficult. It just takes, you know, spending a couple minutes to finish it.

It gives us an opportunity to move, to [00:10:00] walk down the stairs, to walk over there, to go through this thing, right? So these little opportunities of time, when we use it that way, we get more things done in our downtime. And when we are really focused, if we need a break, we can go ahead and break and still do something productive.

Instead of breaking and sitting outside and just Doing nothing or having a random conversation , when it's not needed, we could have been doing something else 

Stephen: from what you're saying here, it also sounds like someone would need mental mobility. And what I mean by that is I can imagine times where, let's say someone, is a type a, and they're focused on a certain project, like, one of those priorities, right?

And so they have that priory in their minds. And even when they're taking a break, they're still thinking about it. And so if they're asked one of those small tasks, they're still [00:11:00] in the middle of their project, if you know what I mean. So how can someone shift from like, okay, I'm, I'm working on this, even though I'm not working on it, meaning they're still in the minds thinking about this and like, I need to get this done to go ahead and do these small little tasks, 

Mike: that's a good one.

The task, the small little task, it cannot require a lot of brainpower. It can't require a lot of brainpower. It's gotta be something that's simple. But just needs to be done. Hey, can you, take this outside and put it in the trash? Can you, grab that email? I think it was sent maybe a week, a week ago to you.

Subject line says this. Right. It's it can't be something that is super creative. It can't be something that's like a big problem. It's just something that requires you to take a little bit of time and energy. So now a person is still focusing on their project [00:12:00] that they're working on, but they're just clicking through.

They're just taking this thing, walking out. Yeah. Can you put together that thing real quick, or can you clean up that room real quick, or, can you order that thing online or something that doesn't take, it's not too complex now, of course, this is based on each individual skillset, but it can't be something that's too complex.

So we can still stay pretty focused on our project and we're just taking a small little break. 

Stephen: Another thing that I'm thinking about is like. When people do think of taking breaks, it's like you said, to unplug and to take a break, go on social media, go, go kind of just like, allow their brain to just veg out.

So, It almost, I can see that it can almost feel a bit daunting to, let's say, go from focus projects to consistently going to do [00:13:00] other quote unquote work. 

Mike: Well, so that's the thing, but this is not real work. It's something that just requires a little bit of attention, but it's not real work. Their real work is the project that they're working on is this big task, but these are small things.

These are small things that still requires. Them to do, but that's the key. It's not something that takes a lot of focus and time. this is while person's in the middle of projects. They're in the middle of their main work. Now, if they're not in the middle of their main work and they're, just downtime, then they can focus more time and attention, but when they need, if we think about it, they need some time to unplug.

So if they jump on their phone and they're navigating through conversations, That still is the same thing. They've got these files that are open their mind about this work that they're doing, and then now they're engaging in this conversation, engaging in this media piece, watching this, [00:14:00] right? It's still the same thing.

They're having to spend time and energy in something else. So they're not as focused on the work that they're doing at that moment. But if it's not a very, very creative thing, it's not mentally exhausting, then it's okay. Okay. It just gives them a break from what they're working on. But the difference though, is when somebody is scrolling around or, they're checking their phone, they're not doing anything most of the time.

Somebody may go, well, I need to respond to some messages. And now that can be the two minute task. I need to respond to these, messages. I haven't responded. Okay, well, great. Then go ahead and respond, right? That could be the two minute task, but it could also be something else outside of responding to messages.

But the idea is. When we are, engaged in our regular work and we need a break, we can do these little tasks and get them done so they don't accumulate in our list. When we are not in the middle of doing [00:15:00] some long work and we just got random downtime, don't let these little tasks accumulate, spend the time instead of randomly watching videos and randomly just having conversations when it's not needed, knock out these little tasks.

Get used to being more productive. I think that's the key. We have to move into a state to where we're able to be more decisive. We're able to get more things done. And if we don't, then our output capacity decreases and we are moving into a world where output is increasing tremendously on such a high level.

And so we need to be able to step up as well, but it doesn't mean that we need to feel energetically drained or mentally drained. We can find ways to be able to organize, to organize and manage our energy throughout the day. If I have downtime and I'm not working on something, [00:16:00] then do the small, easy little tasks that takes less than two minutes, so they don't accumulate in my plate.

So that's a thing as 

Stephen: well. You know, specifically around, I think before people can really do this, they need to come in with a certain mindset, which is to don't sweat the small stuff, something along those lines, meaning that sometimes I feel that. Even the small little tasks can feel very daunting inside of the mind, , like even just cleaning the room, which might take just a couple minutes, but it's like, ah, I got to clean the room.

I got to go do the dishes and it becomes, it doesn't feel like it's two minutes, but it feels like it's this task that needs to get done. You know what I mean? And so that I feel would prevent people from really wanting to go and take care of those things because it, it feels like [00:17:00] I'm just taking a break from work and now I got to go and do this.

Mike: Well, this increases the strength of their mind because when they go and spend less than two minutes and clean up the room, now they start to challenge that belief, this, this fake belief in their head. That it was so hard. It's so hard to do it. But when they do it, they realize how easy it actually was.

All it takes is a few times of doing something and then now they start to change their belief. But if they were to try to sit there and try to, navigate in their mind and try to convince themselves that it's not that hard. It's very slow and ineffective. Because there will always be another perspective to challenge themselves in their mind and they're just, spending their time debating in their mind.

If they were to just. Go and follow the simple rule. It's less than two minutes. Okay. I just do it now. They might be going, Oh, so it's going to be so tough, but they still do it. [00:18:00] And when they do it and they're done in less than two minutes, they realize it was really easy. Wow. I didn't realize how effortless that was.

I thought it was going to be tough. And the next time around, same thing, the room is messy and they're like, Oh, someone's like, Hey, can you clean up? Or they look at it, realize they need to clean it up. Now they go, okay, well, it's less than two minutes. Let me just do it real quick. And every time when they do that, they are confirming a new belief.

This task is easy. And then over time, it starts to develop a new way of looking at things. They don't look at tasks as like big mountains. They don't look at things like, Oh my God, I can't handle it. They start to build confidence. There starts to have this belief of, I got this. And when that happens, now tasks that are really short, they knock them out.

And now even big task, now in their regular work, these big tasks, same mindset. What used to be, oh my god, I don't think I can ever take this on, it's too much for me. [00:19:00] They go, you know, I got this, yeah, I can do it. Because they are so used to accomplishing things. Can you imagine like a person works on one task and it takes like a week.

To accomplish it. So there's a week, every single day, they're trying and it's not accomplished. They're working on it. It's not accomplished and they don't do any little tasks. So every day they accomplish seem to be milestones at best. But they don't really feel like they've really accomplished anything because it's not really done.

It's just in the process of done, but they don't know if it's gonna be done. Maybe at the end it doesn't work. But when we develop a mindset of getting things done, we have things that take a week to get done and we have something that could take one minute, two minutes to get done. So every day we're getting things done.

We get small things done and every week we get big things done. And every month we get bigger things done, [00:20:00] right? And then every year you see, that's how it works. When we look at the small things and we think, Oh, they're so small. I don't need to, I'll put it off till later. Then we end up not getting the small things done and small things end up affecting the midsize things and eventually the big things.

So when we get in the habit of getting things completed, now getting small things completed builds upon our own confidence. To get midsize things completed. And then the more midsize things we complete, you see, it builds the confidence to get big things completed. So it's like this mindset as well. It's just changing this belief.

When we have confidence that we can get things done, then we start to say yes to the things that are aligned much more than worrying that we don't have what it takes somehow. But you see, when someone worries and they go, I don't know if I can handle it. That's because this person is not used to getting things done.

This [00:21:00] person is not used to making decisions. The person is not used to accomplishing things. So then now they lack the confidence to say yes. So when we were getting small things done, they seem small. Yes. But we don't want to underestimate when you knock out a lot of small things, anybody that's knocked out a lot of small things will still feel very accomplished.

Just ask anybody or yourself, right? You ever knock out like four or five small things, even if they were small, you're like, Oh, wow, I got this done. I got this done. I got this. Yeah. It feels good, you know, even if they're just like little things so it's like you go shopping and it's like, okay, I need to pick up these five things today and then you go to seven, eight stores, 10 stores to find these five things at the end of the day, you've been out there for six, seven hours, you come back, you feel accomplished, you go, I wanted to get these five things and I went to 10 different stores and found all five of these things and they're all small, like how hard is it go to store and buy this thing, right?

That's nothing [00:22:00] compared to like a. Project that can take a week or a month, but even these little small things, a person knows how that feels like when you accomplish little tasks like that, it still feels good. And that's what we need to do. Get into the habit of getting things done, get into the habit of accomplishment.

So don't neglect the little two minute ones. 

Stephen: Let me ask you a question because with this type of mentality, it sounds like, you're going to get your small stuff done. You're going to get your medium and your big things. Everything is going to get done, , as you continue to take action and do what it takes.

Now there are different philosophies out there about the 80, 20 rule. About the 20 percent of the effort is going to produce 80 percent of the results. Right. And so, if someone's applying that 80 20 rule, does this still fit or does it contradict what we've been talking about here? [00:23:00] 

Mike: So, it will still fit, but the 80 20 rule, when we look at it, we may look at it on the surface level, and we can say that Oh, you know, um, 80 percent of the results can come from 20 percent of your effort, right?

So, or 20 percent of the things you do.

So now let's go in a little bit deeper and go the 80 percent of the results that you got that came from the least amount of things, those five things are the most important out of the 50 things or something like that, right? What allows us to do a good job in these five things? Because these five things are the things that really matter.

They do. All the other fifty are small potatoes. But What allows us to do these five things well, you see? These five things are the things that creates the most results. But if we ask that question, what gets us to [00:24:00] do these five things well? It's like a person that, you're in competition, you're playing some sport, and there are like 20 games, but out of the 20 games, the last five games are like the most important.

So what do you do? Only play those five games? No, you played a 20. Do you only play the 20? No, you practice 200 times, right? Through the down through the off season. So you can play those 20 games so that you can win those five, because those five makes up 80 percent of your score towards, you know, winning a championship or something, right?

But what got you to be so good at those five? It's the 20 games. It's a 15 games before that. And the 200 practices before that. So it still aligns with that rule. That rule is still effective and true. But if we look at what allows us to perform at our [00:25:00] best, so we can get the most results with those 20 percent of things, it's the little things that we do.

It's the insignificant stuff that isn't getting us. The real results that we want, but it's leveling up ourselves. It's increasing our own confidence, increasing our ability to make decisions faster. It's increasing our critical thinking capacity, capability. It's increasing our energy. It's building upon ourself.

It's helping us develop so that we can perform at our best when it really matters. And so when I'm doing this, this two minute rule, and I'm getting all these little things knocked down, personally for me, every time when I finish this little thing, it's a win. Win, win, win, win, win, win, win. These little things, for me, I also need to make decisions.[00:26:00] 

Isn't just like take out the trash or something. It's like, Hey, Mike, we're gonna, we're gonna install this. We're going to build that. I go build that. Okay. Uh, right. Which option do we go with this or this? Just need you to, decide really quick, right? That's a quick decision, but that's still, you know, still a decision.

So then I go, uh, let's go with this or give me some info. Okay. Let's go with that. So it's still, for me under two minutes. But when I started to practice this, I started to be able to make decisions really quickly. And so many decisions, a lot of times, it's not so much that the, it takes a lot of work to do these things.

It's just that a lot of times it becomes decisions over time. In the beginning, it's like work as we start to build and we start to increase our operations. Now it's not so much of just doing the work. That's part of it. But I find myself now having to make a lot of decisions. Decisions take just a [00:27:00] very short period of time to decide, but if I'm not good at making decisions, then this decision that could just take me under two minutes may take me two hours.

Because I'm not confident, because I'm worried, because I'm so focused on just one thing I don't have any idea of all the other moving parts. So something I could take a short period of time to decide now takes a long time. So this two minute rule allowed me to be able to be much more efficient in business.

So now I'm constantly making a lot of decisions every day. And these decisions allow people to move forward with certain different projects, but they're, so short, they don't take that much time, only because I've been doing this, this rule for a while, before I wouldn't want to make the decision, because I'm worried, what happens if I get it wrong, I wasn't used to being [00:28:00] decisive, you see, how powerful is that, the ability to be decisive, The ability to be able to trust our own decision, the ability to not be afraid to make a mistake.

That type of thing, that type of skill set is what allow us to be able to do those 20 percent of things that really matter to do them very well so that we get the 80 percent of the results. 

Stephen: So just to clarify a bit on that, when you're talking about the two minute rule and we were talking about getting small tasks done quickly.

And now we're also talking about decisions. Are you saying that the two minute rule applies for both the tasks and the decisions, or are you saying that because you're doing so many of these small tasks, So quickly, and you've done so many of them that it [00:29:00] changes something inside where you're able to make decisions much faster.

Mike: So when I started this years ago, it wasn't so much of making decisions. It was like just two minute little tasks. You know, there's a whole bunch. So I just started doing these two minute tasks. But over the years, as I started to do that and we started to build business and started to work, there's a lot more moving parts.

And then these little two minute tasks started to increase more frequently. Because there's more people on the team, there's a lot more decisions to be made. The tasks. wasn't so much of me spending time to do this thing. It was more of me having to take a look at something and make a decision here. Take a look at something and make a decision here.

And again, they were still very short things. I don't need to spend any time besides, here's the thing, decide A or B. Here's the thing, decide what we need to do. Here's the thing, decide what we need to do. So remember earlier when I mentioned that [00:30:00] when we're in the middle of doing something, if we branch off and do a two minute short thing, we shouldn't be spending a lot of time and energy because it's going to distract us from the main work that we're working on at the moment.

Hmm. 

Stephen: Hmm. 

Mike: Well, when we get really good at deciding, when we get really confident with our own decisions. It doesn't take as much time and energy. So I would be working on something that could take me, a week to finish. And as I'm working on it, people will come in and go, Hey, can you answer this really quick?

Can you give me a yes or no on this? Can you tell me which thing is better? Can you give me a solution to this issue? Those tasks, those decisions are now. It feels like really small things just like before, just like when I'm doing a little simple thing like taking out the trash, even though it's a decision that can create different ripple effects.

But this is the effect, this is what happens when we're constantly [00:31:00] making decisions, when we're constantly accomplishing things, when we're constantly used to getting things done. Now, decisions seem to be really small, small potatoes to do, but it took time to build up to that. So, there are people out there that won't do small things because, they think it's not that important.

And it's not about decisions, just small little things. But once they start to do that and they start to build up their life the way they want, eventually, they may run into a situation like what I'm talking about, to where They're still very short periods of time that they need to work on something, but instead of it being just this little bit of physical work, it's making a decision here and making a decision here.

That's when you know, you're evolving. You know, when we look at the leaders of organizations, they're not sitting there doing so much of the work by themselves. They have a team that's helping them, but their job is making executive decisions. [00:32:00] And they make a lot. Constantly signing, making a decision, making a decision, meeting after meeting to make decisions, make decisions, you see, so the ability to be able to be decisive, the ability to be able to have confidence.

That took a lot of practice and that wasn't just coming from one project or two projects. It came from the practice of making decisions, the practice of being used to accomplishing a lot of things, small, medium, and big. So I think the big takeaway here is big things create the most amount of results in our life.

They really do. But the small things builds upon our own confidence and our own It trains our ability to be decisive and that matters a lot. And when we can combine the two together, now we get really good at making decisions. We get really good at that [00:33:00] confidence that we need to have because we're always making decisions, whether it's small, whether it's medium.

And then when we're doing the big stuff, we're in the right state of mind to be able to handle it as well.

Stephen: Well, there we have it. This is something that every one of us can do on such a small level. Two minutes go and take care of these smaller tasks. And like Mike said, maybe eventually we all become. Much more productive, which essentially means that we become more of who we want to be. So thanks once again for listening to another episode of body over minds.

And like always, if you really want to become a person who's Very dependable, very action oriented, getting shit done, and at the same time being peaceful and centered. This is something that both me and Mike have been working on for quite some time. And [00:34:00] Mike, this is his thing.

This is his passion to share with other people, and so If it's something that you want to dive deeper into, go and take a look at his website, flow60. com where he'll share more information on how you can go deeper with this type of practice. All right, guys, see you on the next episode.