The RN35: The Simplest Way to Beat Procrastination
Harvard found the problem and I built the fix
Procrastination is normal and everyone does it.
Some of us procrastinate more than others, and I was one of the worst. Tasks would sit on my to-do list for weeks, and I just kept moving them from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday until I would start researching a new to-do list app.
Back in the days of Trello, I would just move the card from column to column.
I was terrible.
I read the fancy books and tried eating the frog, but I could never get inspired by that advice because who wants to eat a frog? I tried time blocking, priority matrices, and color-coded calendars, but none of it stuck. I am also color-blind, lol.
Then I had a random thought. If beating procrastination is easy for some people and hard for others, maybe those people know something I don’t. That means it can be learned, and if it can be learned, it can be taught, which makes it a skill.
That gives me hope!!!
In fact, this hit me when I was dealing with my taxes.
Just to be totally honest: I don’t even do my taxes anymore because I just collect my documents and ship them off to my family office, so I have it pretty good. But I still couldn’t bring myself to start, and the task sat in my Asana for 3 weeks straight.
I knew something was broken, so I sat down and wrote out every project I had been elegantly avoiding. There were eleven, and I forced myself to answer one question for each: Why am I actually avoiding this?
As you might imagine… the answer was the same for almost all of them.
I didn’t have a game plan, therefore I didn’t know where to start… so, clearly, I did nothing.
Our smart friends who do research about this stuff at Harvard’s Academic Resource Center found that not knowing where to start is one of the strongest predictors of procrastination. A lack of clear next steps causes more procrastination than laziness ever did.
When you say it that way… of course that makes sense.
So instead of trying to come up with a game plan for every project, I came up with a system that creates the game plan for me. I call it the RN35.
RN35 stands for Right Next 3 things that take 5 minutes each.
When you face a project you keep avoiding, ask yourself one question: What are the next 3 things I can do, where none of them takes more than 5 minutes?
Here’s how I used it on my taxes.
Instead of looking at “prepare taxes” as one task, I wrote down 3 small steps:
Open last year’s return folder and skim the first page (3 minutes)
Text my CPA to ask when he needs everything by (1 minute)
Create a new folder on my desktop called “2025 Taxes” (1 minute)
I did all 3 in under 5 minutes… and even kept going.
I pulled up my bank statements, then my brokerage statements, then my donation receipts. About 15mins later, I had everything packaged and ready to send.
A project that had been on my list for 3 weeks took under 15 mins once I had a game plan.
A few things that have helped me that may also help you:
Keep each task under 5 minutes, and if it takes longer, you picked the wrong task and need to break it down further.
Make each task something you can physically do. “Think about the trip” is not a task, but “open the Google Doc and write the first bullet point” is one that you will get done!
Write the 3 tasks down instead of trying to remember them.
Do all 3 in one sitting because if you do one and walk away, you lose the progress.
When I feel stuck now, I ask one question: What’s my RN35?
If you liked this post, then you’ll like this one too:
