I would go further than this. If a task would take less than 5 minutes, do that task now. Do not put it off. Seriously, just DO IT.
It saves you so much time and hassle down the line.
It saves you so much time and hassle down the line.
My most productive days are when all 5min tasks are ignored until the last possible moment when their importance grows so much that they must be done. 90% of them turn out to not need doing at all.
As a result many say I'm among the most prolific people they know, and I am nobody's idea of "who to call in emergency". ymmv
I mean, we don't do this with our OS schedulers? Why would we use a dogmatic "shortest task first" approach for everything else?
Because that's what the GTD mantra says? "If it takes less than 5 minutes, just do it immediately"
I'm pointing out why in my experience that mantra doesn't work. And I've never read the actual book, so it's very likely I'm taking the mantra too literally and that's why it doesn't work.
Even if you do treat that as a mantra, another part of GTD is prioritization. If you aren't getting your real obligations done because of all these 5-minute tasks, then you're not prioritizing properly.
http://gettingthingsdone.com/fivesteps/
That's a good distillation of the concept. The idea of doing the quick stuff immediately is to prevent a massive backlog later that drains you even more. Even things like checking your email can be done less frequently to prevent unnecessary context switches. Check your email 2-5 times a day instead of leaving it open all the time. When you open it and see a bunch of short tasks, do them or schedule them (with a preference to doing to prevent that accidental backlog), then resume your work. If it's taken you 30 minutes (or some arbitrary, personal limit), switch back to your main tasks and get back to the email again later.
I'm not perfect about it, but it's good advice.