Beat Procrastination: Five-Minute Start

About this resource

Procrastination is maintained by avoidance of the discomfort a task provokes. The most effective counter is not to wait for motivation but to act first and let motivation follow, a principle central to behavioural activation. The five-minute start applies this at the smallest possible scale. The client commits only to beginning the task and continuing for five minutes. After that they may stop without penalty. In practice most people continue, because the discomfort that made starting hard fades quickly once the task is under way, and because a task in progress is far less aversive than a task in prospect.

The worksheet structures this as a small behavioural experiment. Before starting, the client predicts how unpleasant the task will be and how likely they are to keep going past five minutes. Afterwards they record what actually happened. Repeated across several tasks, the gap between prediction and outcome becomes the client's own evidence that the anticipatory dread is unreliable, which is the cognitive change that makes the behavioural strategy durable.

The professional version includes guidance on selecting tasks of appropriate difficulty (graded, starting with moderately avoided tasks rather than the most feared one), on handling clients who stop exactly at five minutes and treat it as failure, and on combining the worksheet with a thought record when perfectionistic predictions dominate.

How to use it

1. Introduce after the client understands procrastination as avoidance of discomfort (see Understanding Procrastination).
2. Choose the first task together. It should be genuinely avoided but not the most dreaded item on the list; the aim is a successful first experiment.
3. Complete the prediction section in session, then have the client do the five minutes at home, or, if practical, during the session itself.
4. Review the outcome section carefully. Draw out the comparison between predicted and actual discomfort, and between predicted and actual duration.
5. Repeat with progressively harder tasks. Keep a running list of outcomes so the pattern is visible.
6. If the client stops at five minutes, treat it as a full success. The commitment was five minutes, and honouring it is the point.

References

• Martell, C. R., Dimidjian, S., & Herman-Dunn, R. (2022). Behavioral Activation for Depression: A Clinician's Guide (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
• Pychyl, T. A. (2013). Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: A Concise Guide to Strategies for Change. TarcherPerigee.
• 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.