“While we can’t control the feelings and thoughts that pop into our heads, we can control what we do with them.”

Nir Eyal

Where did the last two hours go? You thought you would quickly check your email app for 30 seconds. You were going to watch just one Youtube video. You were just going to reply to your friend’s text message. Now your whole workday feels ruined!

Beware of these triggers and where they may lead.

Nir Eyal, the productivity guru who wrote the book on becoming Indistractable, recommends implementing the “ten-minute rule”.

 Next time you’re working on something important but that urge arises to check something (e.g. googling, email, smartphone), try the following:

“If I find myself wanting to check my phone as a pacification device, I tell myself it’s fine to give in, but not right now; I have to wait just ten minutes. This technique is effective at helping me deal with many potential distractions.”

“If we still want to perform the action after ten minutes of urge surfing, we’re free to do it; but that’s rarely the case. The liminal moment has passed, and we’re able to do the thing we really wanted to do.”

Nir Eyal

I have tried implementing the ten-minute rule, and it works pretty well. Quite often, those things we think we “must do” right now are actually just fleeting feelings that pass quickly. Then ten minutes later, we are busy working, and our desire to satisfy that urge has disappeared.

You can potentially save waster hours in your day by being aware of this slippery slope of satisfying your urges.

Resist the temptation and implement the ten-minute rule.