Do you wish you could feel more motivation to do the things you want to do? Does depression keep you from being able to do anything? The 15 Minute Rule is a tool I came up with when I was really depressed for long periods of time and needed to find a way to get out of bed and do anything at all. I’m sure there are other existing versions of this very effective approach out there, but this is my version.
The rule is pretty simple:
To get motivation to do something, try doing it for 15 minutes without quitting. If after the end of the 15 minutes you want to stop, you can.
It is a well known productivity hack that motivation tends to come from the act of doing things for a bit (see this link for a breakdown of this concept by Dean Bokhari “action leads to motivation”). It’s more rare that you will be motivated first and then engage in the act but this is often what we expect to happen. We wait to feel like drawing before drawing or wait to feel like exercising before exercising. Often the motivation never comes and so action is never taken. But doing the thing is what in a lot of cases will give you the psychological drive to continue to do that thing for a longer period. Especially if you are constantly depressed and unmotivated to do anything ever.
Motivation is not immediate, which is why we often give up a bit too early. We think “well I’ve been drawing for 3 minutes and I don’t feel like drawing so I am going to stop,” but this is the wrong approach because we are not giving our motivation enough time to kick in. So I experimented with raising the time I force myself to act to 15 minutes. And if I am depressed this is all I force myself to do and I don’t recriminate myself for not being able to do any more. I would say 80% of the time I am successful in motivating myself to do what I want to do for an hour after trying almost any activity for 15 minutes. Which is a great improvement over doing nothing and was instrumental in helping me become productive and far less depressed.
Another important aspect of this approach is that it is a good way to counter avoidance coping.
“Avoidance coping—also known as avoidant coping, avoidance behaviors, and escape coping—is a maladaptive form of coping in which a person changes their behavior to avoid thinking about, feeling, or doing difficult things. Avoidance coping involves trying to avoid stressors rather than dealing with them.”[1] Procrastination is a form of avoidance coping which can benefit from the 15 Minute Rule approach. When you use avoidance coping you are often causing more anxiety than you would have if you just confronted the problem you are facing.[2]
The recommended counter to avoidant behavior like this is to use active coping where we deal with the fear we face of doing a difficult or “boring” thing by confronting that thing and doing it.[3] But it can be hard to force yourself to do something, especially initially when you have zero motivation. With the 15 Minute Rule you give that thing that you wish to do but have no motivation to actually do a small amount of time to allow for motivation to kick in and if you succeed in doing the thing you can reduce anxiety that avoidance might be causing you. The 15 minute timer makes it a low risk, easy commitment, and if you’re still too depressed to continue you are 100% allowed to stop. There is a high likelihood that you will create enough motivation to do the task for an extended period of time using this strategy.
So yeah, if you have been struggling with getting anything done at all because of a bad depression, I recommend you give this approach a try. The things you may accomplish from this may lessen or even help eliminate your depression symptoms over time. At least, it worked for me.
Sources:
[1] Scott, Elizabeth. “Avoidance Coping and Why It Creates Additional Stress.” Verywellmind, Feb 22, 2021, https://www.verywellmind.com/avoidance-coping-and-stress-4137836#. Accessed August 4, 2022. For more information on avoidance coping check out: Boyes, Alice. "Avoidance Coping." Psychology Today, May 5 2013, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-practice/201305/avoidance-coping, August 4, 2022.
[2] Scott, Avoidance Coping and Why It Creates Additional Stress.
[3] Scott, Avoidance Coping and Why It Creates Additional Stress.
Comments