How to Stop Procrastinating: a simple Guide to Mastering Difficult Tasks and Breaking the Procrastination Habit

The 25–5 Rule Explained
The 25–5 Rule is a concept that I learned from the
Live Your Legend site,
where Scott Dinsmore shared a story titled “Warren Buffett’s 5-Step
Process for Prioritizing True Success (and Why Most People Never Do
It)” about meeting a friend of Warren Buffett’s pilot
(whom he calls
Steve).
In this conversation with Dinsmore, Steve talked about how Buffett
encouraged him to write down a list of 25 things he wanted to do over the
next few years. After completing this list, Buffett told him to review this
list and circle his top five priorities. These goals would be more important
than anything else in Steve’s life.
Next, Buffett encouraged Steve to create an action plan for these five
activities. Buffett instructed him to write them down as actionable goals
and get started on them immediately.
Toward the end of this conversation, Buffett asked a simple question:
“But what about these other 20 things on your list that you didn’t circle?
What is your plan for completing those?”
Steve’s reply was probably what most of us would say: “Well, the top five
are my primary focus, but the other twenty come in at a close second.
They are still important, so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit as
I’m getting through my top five. They are not as urgent, but I still plan to
give them dedicated effort.”
Buffett’s reply was surprising: “No. You’ve got it wrong, Steve.
Everything you didn’t circle just became your ‘avoid at all costs’ list. No
matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve
succeeded with your top five.”
Great advice, right?

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Well, I can tell you that the 25–5 Rule really works when you apply it in
the real world. In fact, I’ve been following it for over a year and it’s had an
amazing effect on my life—specifically when it comes to preventing
procrastination.
After making the commitment to focus only on five things at a time, I’ve
had more business success and personal happiness than I did when my
life was filled with dozens of weekly projects, obligations, appointments,
and piles of “someday” tasks.
As an example, my current five focuses (in order of priority) are:
1. being present with friends and family;
2. completing an IRONMAN race;
3. writing and marketing my books;
4. increasing web traffic to my blog, DevelopGoodHabits.com, and
converting these visitors into email subscribers;
5. fixing and updating sections of my home.
What’s powerful about the five-project focus is it’s easy to make decisions
about my daily tasks. Each day, I review the items on my
Todoist app
and
any new requests for my time. If the activity doesn’t match one of these
five goals, then I immediately say no (which is a concept that we’ll talk
more about in
Step #4
).
Now, it’s not written in stone that you concentrate only on five projects.
You could have a few more or a few less. The important thing is to
proactively think about your time, commitments, and where you spend
the most time. If every one of your actions is directly aligned with a goal,
then you’ll feel excited to do it, which is the ultimate procrastination
killer.
So how do you identify these five projects?
Well, the first step is to examine your core values. If you match your
internal beliefs to your current obligations, then it’s not hard to
exclusively focus on the activities that make you happy. So, let’s talk
about that next.

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