I’m always amazed at how much I can accomplish when I focus on a task for 15 minutes.
How about you? Do you have big goals you’d love to accomplish? These tips can help you tackle amazing things in small chunks of time.
“I’d love to write a book someday, but right now I don’t have the time.”
Can you relate? When I teach writing classes, I hear this often.
One of my favorite exercises to do with writers is a timed sprint. We set a timer for 15 minutes, and everyone writes as quickly and unconsciously as they can.
When the timer goes off, these writers are often astonished that their average word count comes in at about 400 words.
Then we do the math: if we write just 400 words a day for five days a week, we can write a 60,000-word draft of a novel in about seven months—and still have weekends off.
I’ve learned that doing big things in small chunks of time can be incredibly productive. We can do amazing things by when we take small steps with consistency and perseverance.
Fifteen Minutes of Focus for Six Days
With this in mind, would you like to join me in an experiment in the coming week?
If you’re game, let’s commit to 15 minutes of one activity for the next six days. We’ll start Monday and end Saturday. The only requirement is that we state our intentions below and check in every day for six days after we complete our activity. By Saturday we’ll have devoted an hour and a half to something meaningful, and we can share our results.
Here are 20 ideas:
- Take photographs
- Meditate
- Practice gratitude
- Exercise
- Create a scrapbook page
- Pray
- Write in a journal
- Beautify a space
- Learn foreign language words or phrases
- Read to a child
- Create a drawing
- Write a poem
- Read a scripture
- Write a letter
- Take a walk
- Reach out to a friend or loved one
- Declutter a shelf
- Work in the garden
- Write a flash fiction story
- Begin your novel
If you’re “in,” leave a comment below about what you’ll do for 15 minutes a day in the coming week. Then, just reply to your own comment each day you complete the activity. You can just write “Done,” or tell us more about what you did, or how it’s going.
Are you game? I’ll get the party started and leave the first comment.
Eliza Cross is the creator of Happy Simple Living, where she shares ideas to help busy people simplify cooking, gardening, holidays, home, and money. She is also the award-winning author of 17 cookbooks, including Small Bites and 101 Things To Do With Bacon.
I just found you from Joshua Becker’s “Becoming Minimalist” email newsletter today! I am SO excited for this challenge! There are craft projects I would like to do and I have not tackled or finished! I’m going to pick my kitting and do it for 15 minutes every day starting this coming Monday the 17th! I am SO EXCITED to try this and see how it works! Thanks!!!
Donna, what a great idea! Knitting for 15 minutes a day sounds so relaxing, and I hope you make good progress on your project. ~Eliza
This is so validating for me! I actually did a complete simplification of my whole house and all of my belongings! At first, I did up to 2 hours at a time once a week because that’s how long it took me to so one large rubbermaid container of stuff that I’ve hauled everywhere I’ve lived since I was a teenager. That felt heavy and I was always exhausted afterwards, albeit relieved to have paired down and put donations in the car and out of the house. After those containers were done, I assessed my whole house and broke down little micro-sessions in each room and did a 10-20 minute sprint 4x a week for 3.5 months and now it is 100% DONE! I even overhauled my wish list to only things that are beautiful versions of necessary-but-ugly things I own, like my blender and stained guest sheets for the pullout. Now that I’m done, I’m using that burst of daily time and energy to form exercise habits and it’s so great because I don’t get sore and then get demotivated and grumpy with said soreness. Chair yoga and slow walks are doing it for me!
Vanessa, thank you for sharing your incredible story! How inspiring that you organized your entire home in short sprints! I want to try this, too. Really wonderful to hear what you accomplished. ~ Eliza
I have a business project that has been sitting on the backburner for 12-months (always citing “I’m too busy” to begin the process). This week I will spend 15-minutes a day preparing the proposal. Thank you for the challenge.
Forgot to put done yesterday, but that’s 2 days of managing to write in my journal for 15 mins each day. :-D
Hurray! Congratulations, Georgina. I am happy for you. :-)
A few years ago after seeing the film American Beauty I committed to 15 minutes a beauty a day meaning I would look for some thing, anything in the world (people, places and thing) especially nature. It might be a brief moment of catching an oriole outside my window, a piece of clothing in a fashion magazine. I forgot about it, and this is a good reminder.
What a glorious idea, Nancy. I need to slow down and appreciate the beauty around me more, too. Love this!
I have two goals that I need to focus on, so I’m going to use two 15 minute slots: (1) I get plenty of exercise walking and biking since I went car-free, but I need to spend more time on stretching and resistance exercises. (2) I have a list of about 10 ebooks and informational products that I want to write for my business, so I need to get cracking on that!
Thanks for the inspiration!
Those are both terrific goals, Green Girl! Can’t wait to hear about your week. xo
What a great idea. For those readers (like me) who aren’t familiar with Tabata, I just learned it’s a high-intensity, fat-burning workout done in short sprints. How perfect, Sheila! Thanks for sharing this.
Isn’t it funny how things come about just when they need to? I was just thinking yesterday that I need to recommit myself to doing 16 minutes (2 sets of 8 minute intervals) of Tabata workouts each day and along comes your 15 minute challenge. I’m in!
This is such a good idea. I’ve got so much on at the moment that I am getting a little stressed. So 15 mins of journalling a day would probably he a good idea.
Georgina, writing always helps me sort things out when I’m stressed. Here’s to you making time and enjoying writing in your journal!
I LOVE this idea! When I was a kid I did competitive speaking and my event was extemp (extemporaneous speaking.) The way it worked was that you got a current events question, and then you had 30 minutes to research and memorize your 5 minute speech. And you couldn’t just BS it either, you had to have actual evidence to back up your points. I have to say, that skill has served me beyond all others that I learned throughout my entire educational career! Aside from the obvious transfer to writing skills, just the knowledge that I had the power to do something meaningful in only 30 minutes was HUGE!
At the moment I can’t think of anything that I want to commit to for the next week that I’m not already giving myself 15-30 minutes a day to do! But if I think of one I’ll write back… just wanted to say BRAVO on a wonderful idea!
Wow, your speaking competition sounds intense! But you are right, a person can do a surprising amount in a short time. I enjoyed seeing your new awning on your blog post, too! :-)
I am going to practice my clarinet even though the sound makes my dog howl. He seems to try to match pitch and actually does quite a good job of doing so. I play in a community band and don’t know my part very well yet in American Salute. I should probably commit to 20 minutes a day because we are playing that piece for a July 4th concert.
Oh Linda, your note made me chuckle. I played the clarinet in junior high, and it always made our dog howl, too. In my case I think I was hurting our dog’s ears with my terrible playing. Your dog sounds like he enjoys your melodies. Good luck with the American Salute!
I tried to play the clarinet in grade school, but was incapable of making any noise at all come out of the thing. Seriously, I couldn’t even make it squeak! So I am in extreme awe of anybody who can make actual music on one of those things! :-)
I’m going to give this a try and spend those fifteen minutes developing the draft outline for my latest writing project. I’ve been putting it off far too long.
As a writer I LOVE your idea, Gretchen. A draft outline sounds like just the thing to help your subconscious start writing away…
I am in! I need something just like this to accomplish tasks often set aside for more meaningful items…laundry, dishes…WORK. I’ve always wanted to start journaling. I just got a new, pretty notebook and I’m off. Thanks for the encouragement.
I’m excited for you, Lori! May you find time this week to write in your pretty journal. xo
I’m in to investigate a career change and how to finance it!
What a great thing to pursue this week, Kyred. I’m pulling for you! :-)
I feel like I’ve been wrapped up in work and chores lately, and I haven’t really indulged my creative muse. So I’m going to have fun and take photographs for 15 minutes every day this week.
How about you?
I am going to practice piano for 15 minutes a day this week.
Beautiful! I love this idea, Billie. Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you make some beautiful music this week. ~Eliza
I’m going to work decluttering a space for 15 minutes beginning today.
I like this idea of writing my goal down and sharing it with others so thanks!
I plan to work on paperwork for at least 15 minutes every day. I have tons of the stuff and it’s kind of my Achilles’ heel (or at least one of them) because it seems to take so long to get through a stack. So here I go!
Patty, you’re speaking my language! I swear the papers multiply here when I’m sleeping. Wishing you much success in your focused paperwork organizing this week! ~Eliza