Use the Two-Hour Rule to Make Progress on Your Creative Projects

Two hours is the perfect chunk of time to focus on a creative project and make some meaningful progress.

Are you having trouble getting started with a creative project or figuring out how to keep momentum with it?

One of the reasons people get stuck with creative projects is that they make a conscious or unconscious plan to spend a full day or week working on something. Reality check: most of us will never get full days to work on something, and when we do, we can’t work for that long anyway. Our creative energy won’t last that long.

The flip side of the coin is that most creative, daring projects are hard to do in 15- and 30-minute chunks. Most projects like this have an engagement threshold that requires that you have enough time to set up and sink into the Flow. Since it’s frustrating to not finish and hard for most people to pick up where they left off, the natural response is that we don’t start. Better to vacuum, check email, or stay up to date with the YouTube meme of the day. (Because such things matter.)

Lastly, it’s often very hard to tell how much to chunk your projects down into smaller pieces, when you do think about chunking them down.