Every business owner has a task they keep putting off. The tax paperwork. The difficult email. The website update. The proposal for the client you’re nervous about. It sits on the list for days or weeks, and every time you look at it, it seems a little bigger.

Usually the task itself isn’t that hard. Starting is. Facing the whole thing at once feels overwhelming, so you do something easier instead, and the task waits another day.

Why it works

Ten minutes is small enough that it doesn’t feel like a big commitment. Almost anyone can face an unpleasant task for ten minutes, especially knowing there’s a clear end.

Once you’ve started, the task usually turns out to be less painful than it seemed. You figure out the first step, then the second, and by the time the timer goes off, you’re often happy to keep going.

Even if you stop at ten minutes, you’ve made progress. The task is a little smaller, and starting again next time is easier because you’re no longer at the beginning.

How to run it

1. Pick the one task you’ve been avoiding the longest.
2. Set a timer on your phone for ten minutes.
3. Work on the task, and only the task, until the timer goes off. No email, no phone.
4. When it rings, decide: stop, or keep going. Both are fine.
5. If you stop, write down the next step so you can start straight from there next time.

The mistake most people make

Trying to finish the whole task in one go. The ten minutes is about starting, not finishing. If you set a goal of completing the entire thing, the task feels just as big as it did before.

The other mistake is doing something related instead of the task itself, like organizing files about the task or researching how to do it. The ten minutes should go to the actual work.