How to start a task you keep putting off
Make the first step about five minutes long, decide when you’ll take it, and let a small start count.
To start a task you keep putting off, make the first step small enough to take in about five minutes, and decide in advance exactly when you’ll take it. Starting is usually the hardest part, and once a task is under way, people tend to come back to it.
In short
- Putting a task off is often about mood. Avoiding an unpleasant task brings quick relief, which researchers call short-term mood repair.
- Shrink the start and give it a time. A five-minute first step tied to a set moment, such as “At 10:00 I open the file and write one line”, makes starting easier. Plans in that if-then form had a medium-to-large effect across 94 tests.
- A small start is worth more than it looks. In lab studies, people went back to interrupted tasks about two times in three.
- Go easy on yourself after a stuck day. In experiments, a kind response to a setback went with more effort the next time.
Your turn: Pick one task you’ve been putting off, write its five-minute first step, and name the moment you’ll take it.
On this page
Short on time?
- Write the smallest physical action that moves the task forward, such as “open the tax folder”.
- Tie it to a moment: “When I sit down after lunch, I open the folder.”
- Give it five minutes, then you may stop. Before you stop, write the next action in one line.
Why is starting a task so hard?
Starting is hard because the unpleasant part of a task arrives now and the payoff arrives later. When a task feels boring, frustrating or shapeless, even thinking about it brings a small dip in mood. Doing something else lifts that mood straight away, so the task slides to tomorrow, even when you care about the result.1
You put off the dreaded email, feel relief for an hour, then feel worse when it’s still waiting.
How small should the first step be?
Small enough to take in about five minutes on a bad day, and concrete enough that someone watching could tell you’d done it. “Work on the report” is a goal. “Open the report and write three bullet points of what I already know” is a step you could see.
| The task you keep putting off | A five-minute first step |
|---|---|
| Sort out the tax return | Find last year’s return and put it on the desk |
| Reply to the awkward email | Open it and write the first sentence |
| Clear the spare room | Fill one bag for the charity shop |
| Plan the trip | Open a note and list three dates that could work |
| Start the presentation | Write the title slide and nothing else |
If the step still feels heavy, halve it. “Open the file” is a perfectly good first step.
Then give yourself honest permission to stop when the five minutes are up. Some days you will, and the step still counts. Other days, the open file makes the next ten minutes easier.
No study has tested a five-minute rule on its own. It borrows from two ideas with better evidence: plans tied to a set moment, and the pull of a task you’ve already started.
What is an if-then plan, and does it help?
An if-then plan ties your first step to a moment you’ll meet anyway: “When X happens, I’ll do Y.” The moment does the reminding, so you don’t have to decide again when the time comes.
- When I sit down after lunch, I open the report and write one line.
- When the 10:00 call ends, I write the first sentence of the email.
- When the kettle goes on in the evening, I put the tax folder on the table.
What the research says
Meta-analysisPsychologists call these plans implementation intentions. A 2006 meta-analysis of 94 independent tests found that they had a medium-to-large effect on reaching goals (d = 0.65), and that they helped people get started as well as stay on track.2
What this can’t tell us: The tests covered many kinds of goals and people, and an effect size is an average. Your own result may be bigger or smaller.
Pay the hidden costs early. Finding the file, logging in and clearing a space all slow a start. Do them while you have energy: leave the document open the night before, or put the form and a pen on the keyboard.
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My first step
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Why does a small start make it easier to keep going?
A task you’ve started tends to pull you back. In lab studies, mostly of short tasks and many of them decades old, people who were interrupted partway through a task went back to it far more often than chance would predict.3 Across 21 publications, people resumed an interrupted task about 67% of the time, where chance would be 50%.3
Leave a breadcrumb when you stop. Before you close the file, write the very next action in one line: “Next: paste the March figures into the table.” Tomorrow you start from a sentence, which is much easier than starting from a blank page.
What should you do after a day you didn’t start?
Treat yourself the way you’d treat a friend in the same spot, then make tomorrow’s first step smaller. Being hard on yourself can feel like the responsible choice, and the research points the other way, at least in short experiments about tests and personal weaknesses.4 In a 2012 set of four experiments, mostly with university students, people encouraged to take a kind view of a setback showed more motivation to improve.4
A three-line restart:
- Name what got in the way, without a verdict. “The task was vague” or “I was exhausted” is useful information.
- Pick tomorrow’s moment. Tie the first step to something that will happen anyway.
- Shrink the step. If yesterday’s step didn’t happen, it was too big for that day. Halve it.
If you have ADHD
Two survey studies of adults link higher scores on an ADHD questionnaire with putting tasks off.56 Neither can show cause and effect, and the other studies in this article weren’t about ADHD.
If the start still won’t come, change one thing. Make the step smaller again, move to another room or a café, or work alongside another person, which some people call body doubling. If getting started is a struggle most days and it’s affecting your work or your life, it’s worth talking to your doctor or a clinician who knows ADHD.
Questions people ask
Why can’t I start a task even when I want to?
Wanting the result and wanting to begin are different pulls. The start of a task can feel unpleasant right now while its reward is far away.
Does the five-minute rule work?
No trial has tested a five-minute rule on its own. It combines two things with better evidence: if-then plans, which had a medium-to-large effect across 94 tests, and the finding that people tend to resume tasks they’ve already started.
Is procrastination just laziness?
Researchers describe it as a problem of managing feelings in the moment. Avoiding an unpleasant task brings quick relief, and the cost lands later.
Sources
- Sirois, F., & Pychyl, T. (2013). Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood regulation: Consequences for future self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115–127.REVIEW · PROCRASTINATION RESEARCH · NARRATIVEdoi.org/10.1111/spc3.12011
- Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119.META-ANALYSIS · MIXED SAMPLES · 94 INDEPENDENT TESTSdoi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1
- Ghibellini, R., & Meier, B. (2025). Interruption, recall and resumption: A meta-analysis of the Zeigarnik and Ovsiankina effects. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 12, 962.META-ANALYSIS · LAB STUDIES OF INTERRUPTED TASKS · 21 PUBLICATIONS ON RESUMPTIONdoi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05000-w
- Breines, J. G., & Chen, S. (2012). Self-compassion increases self-improvement motivation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(9), 1133–1143.EXPERIMENTS · UNDERGRADUATES (1–3) AND US ADULTS ONLINE (4) · 4 EXPERIMENTSdoi.org/10.1177/0146167212445599
- Netzer Turgeman, R., & Pollak, Y. (2023). Using the temporal motivation theory to explain the relation between ADHD and procrastination. Australian Psychologist, 58(6), 448–456.CROSS-SECTIONAL SURVEY · ADULTS, ADHD QUESTIONNAIRE SCORES · N = 202doi.org/10.1080/00050067.2023.2218540
- Netzer Turgeman, R., & Pollak, Y. (2026). What are you waiting for?! Roles of motivation, goal orientation, and emotion regulation in explaining the link between ADHD and procrastination. Journal of Attention Disorders, 30(5), 694–704.PREREGISTERED CROSS-SECTIONAL SURVEY · ADULTS RECRUITED ONLINE, ADHD QUESTIONNAIRE SCORES · N = 640doi.org/10.1177/10870547251408120
Sources checked .
General information, not medical advice.
How sources are chosen and checked: editorial policy.