What’s so special about 5:15? Is it 15 minutes after you get off work, 15 minutes into a happy hour…you don’t want me to get up at 5:15 in the morning do you??? Actually, I was referring to a simple concept of 5 seconds or less and 15 seconds or more. It might just be the ticket to forming or kicking your next habit!
Have you ever wanted to start a new habit or maybe kick an old one? Maybe you want to improve your health and sanity by walking in the morning? Perhaps you are attempting to cut back on the delectable brown crack, innocently disguised as the humble brownie. Have you tried all kinds of ideas but just can’t seem to find anything that will help you stick to a habit? After researching the topics of habits, willpower, positive psychology and a dash of physics; I Frankensteined the best concepts and came up with an idea of 5:15. Here’s how it works:
In 6th grade physics, you learned that it takes a fair amount of energy to get an object that is motionless to start moving. After a great deal of initial effort, momentum kicks in and helps lower the amount of energy required to keep that object in motion. (Objects at rest tend to stay at rest; objects in motion tend to say in motion.) The reason it takes so much initial energy is usually due to the effort required to overcome friction and gravity. The more mass an object has, the more energy is required to start it moving.
The same can hold true when attempting to form a seemingly daunting habit. In the case of getting in the habit of walking in the morning, one of the biggest barriers (effort) might be the whole idea of putting those pesky shoes on in the first place. A solution is to make starting the task or habit, as simple as possible.
5 seconds or less
The concept is pretty straight-forward; if you want to walk in the morning you need to overcome the gravity of the bed and the drag of procrastination. Start the activity by making it as easy to initiate as you can. Place those walking shoes somewhere you can get to them in 5 seconds or less. Front and center is the best way to go. Here are a few suggestions; place them on the toilet lid, place them in the shower, place them in front of the door, put them in the refrigerator (Burr!) or place them on your alarm clock before you go to bed. The idea is to put them somewhere that you can’t seem to avoid them; in fact, you want it almost impossible to ignore them. This is in the hopes that it makes it as easy as possible to begin your new habit.
15 seconds or more
Making things easier for ourselves can have an adverse effect as well. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at that brownie problem. (I like this one because I personally have a huge challenge controlling myself around them…just ask my wife Amanda!) If you put those brownies where you can get to them in 5 seconds or less, you might end up eating half the pan like I do. If you took those same brownies and made it as difficult as possible to get to them, it’s more likely you can develop the fortitude not to go on a search and destroy mission. Besides, out of sight, out of mind, right? Place the brownies in a location that will require you to walk 15 seconds or more to get to them. As an added barrier, put them in a container that is opaque so you don’t have that temptation staring back at you! If you want a third deterrent, place an old walking shoe (not the ones you regularly use) on top of your container. Think of it as a subtle reminder of the healthy lifestyle you want.
The 5:15 at work
Do you have a project that seems to get pushed to the back burner all the time? Pick a day you want to start on the project. The evening before, put documents related to your project in a red file labeled “You REALLY need to do this today!” Place the file on your keyboard or in front of your computer screen. Put it some place a lot less than 5 seconds away!
Perhaps you are losing precious time during your day due to constant texting or habitual smartphone checking while at your desk. In this case, use the 15 second idea. Stand up and walk at least 15 seconds away and look for the closest drawer you can “stash” your phone. If you have an admin or a trusted colleague that is outside of that 15 second bubble, give it to that person for safe keeping. If you mostly work from home, you can just leave it in the car. You can use different combinations of strategies just as long as it ratchets up the effort required to get to your mobile time-sucking device.
If you are in the process of creating a new habit, getting started usually requires the greatest amount of emotional energy. Consider placing an object that will remind you to do that “something” 5 seconds or closer to you and make it as easy to get started as you can. If you are attempting to get out of a habit, do the complete opposite! Throw as many roadblocks and barriers up as you possibly can and place that object of desire 15 seconds or more away from you.
Stick to the idea of 5:15 and you will be well on your way to habitual bliss.
