The Power of Five Minutes

There’s power in working on a task or goal in small chunks of time, particularly if the task is a big one that could take hours or days to accomplish. We know we can’t lose all our weight, declutter our home or write a book in one day. It’s the effort toward the task, or the goal done consistently that creates the progress. 

This spring I was a little daunted realizing the grass seed my husband put down in the fall didn’t just land on the lawn, but in my garden beds as well! I needed to get that new grass out of the beds before it built strong roots and took over. I could have dedicated a full day to the project of course, but I decided to save my physical body and tackle the project in short periods of time. 

I grabbed a plastic grocery sack and stepped outside each day to pull grass and yes, some weeds. Instead of focusing on the full yard, or even the length of some of these spaces, I kept my focus, my eyes on narrow sections of the garden bed. I would envision getting a section done and work to that vision or until my bag was full. I didn’t track the time spent, but a few times that I did look at the clock, I had spend 15-30 minutes on the work. Looking back now, I don’t remember the amount it time it took even in days. The point is that regular effort, in smallish increments got me to my goal, garden beds free of grass and weeds. 

I have used the power of small increments of time to declutter, unpack a home, sewing projects and reading books. In fact, last year much of my focus was on getting through quite a few books I had purchased and either never started to read or had only partially read. Every day I made time to read for ten minutes or for ten pages (it varied by book). By the end of the year I had read eighteen non fiction books (two were nearly 600 pages each)! Effort regularly, even in very small amounts of time simply adds up and brings our goal to fruition. 

Next time you are overwhelmed by a large task, consider if you could regularly work on the task in small increments of time, say 5-20 minutes. Show up daily, or on regular basis for this task or goal you want to accomplish and see what can get done in a week or two. 

Getting started on large, sometimes overwhelming tasks, can often be the hardest part. The small obligation of showing up for five minutes can get the project moving. We can all show up for five minutes, yes? 

Do you have any examples of how you accomplished a large goal, by showing up regularly to work on it?