You Can Do Anything for 10 Minutes
- Ashley Widowski
- Jun 14, 2023
- 3 min read
My house was a mess. I didn’t want to do that pile of dishes or mop the floor because I was tired; or maybe I was tired because I was looking at the pile of dishes and a filthy floor. I knew it wouldn’t take long, but I was so sick of being responsible all the time! So I did the only sensible thing; I plopped myself down in front of my television to binge watch Netflix.
As luck would have it, I was in the middle of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. For those of you who haven’t seen it, this is the humorous story of a young woman who moved to NYC after being rescued from a cult.
Amidst the comedic repertoire, I discovered a rather profound sentiment. “A person can stand anything for about 10 seconds”, Kimmy told her friends as she recounted her own methods to make it through exhausting, repetitive and meaningless tasks that she was forced to do during her captivity. The scene shows her cranking a wheel counting aloud and wearing down as she got closer to ten. But every time she got back to 1, she got a temporary boost of energy and mood, as if she was starting fresh with a new task.
“I learned a long time ago that a person can stand just about anything for 10 seconds, then you just start on a new 10 seconds. All you've got to do is take it 10 seconds at a time.” ~ Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Interesting…
My thoughts drifted to that pile of dishes. Could it be that simple? Maybe learning to tolerate 10 second intervals sounded a little unrealistic but it got me thinking: how long does it actually take to wash a load of dishes or mop the floor. I wonder if I could just try doing it for say, 10 minutes at a time?
So began my experiment. I set my timer for 10 minutes for any unpleasant task and found that I was consistently beating my time. I wondered if this could be applied to the things I wanted to do but could never “find the time” for. Sure enough, 10 minutes of yoga in the morning turned out to be really easy to maintain. Writing for 10 minutes wasn’t so hard.
What I discovered was that it wasn’t even about the amount of time I dedicated – in fact sometimes I went over without even noticing – but the fact that I had an end in sight. I didn’t have to commit to writing a whole essay or story, in fact what I wrote wasn’t even important as long as I did it. I wasn’t trying to build an hour and a half yoga practice, just 10 minutes gave me a boost of energy in the morning even if most of it was done laying down with my eyes still closed.
The topic came up again when my daughter was struggling with her homework. She kept asking for help without trying to figure it out on her own. I was out of ideas until someone suggested setting a timer for her, giving her a clearly defined set of time to “figure it out” before I would intervene. It worked almost like magic. After 2 or 3 times when she not only figured it out on her own, but well before the 5 minute timer I set, she finally had the confidence she needed to do it on her own consistently.
Ah ha! So it doesn’t even have to be 10 minutes. Could it be that everyone’s time is different? Or does it depend on the task?
This is where you come in. Take a task you’ve been putting off... is it one that you don’t like to do, or one that you don’t think you have time for? Pay attention to these details as you conduct your experiment. Pick a time that stands out to you, is it 5 or 10 minutes? Are you more disciplined by nature and willing to bet you can do anything for 15 - 20 minutes? Or do you like to keep yourself on your toes and want to see if 7 minutes is your thing?