The Fifteen-Minute Rule

Tuesday. Consistency day. And today I want to hand you the ten percent rule’s close cousin: the fifteen-minute rule.

It goes like this. The thing you’re avoiding — the project, the chore, the email backlog, the difficult start — you don’t have to do it. You just have to do fifteen minutes of it. Set a timer if you like. When the fifteen minutes are up, you’re free to stop, guilt-free, having genuinely kept your commitment.

Two things happen. Most days, you keep going — because starting was the whole wall, and fifteen minutes is enough to get through the wall. But some days you stop at fifteen, and here’s the part people miss: that’s a success too. Fifteen minutes a day, every day, is over ninety hours a year. Ninety hours moves mountains — slowly, invisibly, the way mountains actually get moved.

Pick your avoided thing. Give it fifteen minutes today. That’s the whole assignment.

Fifteen minutes a day is ninety hours a year. That’s how mountains actually get moved.

What avoided thing gets your fifteen minutes today?