The One-Minute Struggle: A tool for making tasks easier and for preventing procrastination

The one-minute struggle is a tactic that my clients and I find helpful in time-management and reducing procrastination.

I've briefly written about it previously, but yesterday, a client asked me lots of questions about it. I offer my answers as well as a description of the one-minute struggle in my Psychology Today article today.

The Fun and Benefits of Type-A Behavior

A 1959 journal article reported that Type A behavior—what’s often called “hurry sickness” and a tendency to get angry, increases risk of cardiovascular disease. 

But a more recent review of the literature in the American Journal of Public Health  found that a number of follow-up studies failed to confirm the claim. The authors of that review concluded that studies prominently reporting that link between Type-A behavior and heart disease were funded by the tobacco industry as a way to deflect attention from cigarette smoking causing heart disease.

It may nevertheless still be that, when the, ahem, smoke clears, Type-A behavior, especially its angry variant, will be shown to at least modestly contribute to cardiovascular disease. And there’s little doubt that an angry personality usually results in ostracism and less influence.

But rather than dismissing Type-A behavior as such a bad characteristic that all efforts should be made to quell it, it might be worth considering its upsides. I outline them in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Knowing When to Decide

My just-concluded career counseling session motivated me to write my PsychologyToday.com article today. 

My client has a PhD and is looking for a post-doc in a narrow specialty. He believes that eventually, he needs to reach out to some of the field’s heavy hitters to get guidance as to where to turn but, week after week now, he continues to do more research to try to figure out who the right people are. He’s still not sure. He admits this is a manifestation of his lifelong problem with excessive rumination and inadequate action.

By the end of the session, he felt far more optimistic he can ameliorate his problem. My PsychologyToday.com article today. offers lessons he learned in that session. They're applicable to personal as well as professional life.

On Time: Wringing 15 months from a 12-month year

The current round of time management advice focuses less on hacks and more on, paradoxically, slowing down. That advice reduces to two core exhortations:

• Take more time to think about complex problems so, per Kahnemann’s Type I and Type 2 thinking, you’re more likely to generate better answers.
• Emphasize work-life balance so your brain will be fresher and because, it is argued, that the life well-led is more than about contribution.

Those points are often Buddhist-infused: meditate, be mindful.

Predictably, the recommendation to muse more and do less has attracted fans, especially among those not very focused on productivity. And indeed, it’s unarguable that it’s wise to take a little time get clear on your life’s priorities, your foundational goals. 

But in terms of tactics, one size doesn’t fit all. Most of my clients who are making a substantial contribution (as well as good income) actually benefit more from time hacks: ways to wring 15 months from a 12-month year.  I offer them in my PsychologyToday.com article today.