When I was in college, my dad taught me to drive a stick shift. He would drive us to a quiet neighborhood and we’d switch seats. I would jerkily get the car going and then gain a little traction and confidence and soon I’d be shifting through the gears.
The part I had to practice the most, though, was going from a stop to first gear. To me, that was the hardest part. I would pull over, again and again, to a full stop so that I could practice starting again. One time, I pulled over in front of a house where a man was outside mowing his lawn. There’s nothing quite like trying, and failing, to get a car into first gear with an audience.
I thought back to this memory the other day because I was having a hard time getting started. I’m in the midst of a few new projects and just like those days of learning to drive stick, I was stuck at zero.
And the thing is, I know you just have to do it. You just have to start. Once you do, it’s so much easier to keep moving, even if you’re just gliding along slowly in first gear.
But that doesn’t help you much when you’re stuck at zero and the guy mowing his lawn is staring at you with a chuckle on his face (metaphorically speaking, of course).
I did find one way that makes it almost unavoidably easy to get going, which is to find the 5-minute start. What is the one thing, as small as possible, that you can spend just 5 minutes on to get started?? Part of my getting-started problem is I tend to look at the big whole project in its un-begun vastness and I’m overwhelmed by options. But if I pick one small detail, one 5-minute piece, the one that almost seems silly in its small-ness…that’s all I need. Because once I’ve started, I’m moving.
And then, as we all know, steady movement, even if small or slow, is what gets things done.
What’s your 5-minute starter?
