The Right Now List: Stop Procrastinating in 60 Seconds

The most effective anti-procrastination tool I’ve ever discovered is something I call the Right Now List. It takes a few minutes to learn, about a minute to use once you know it, and can massively cut down on your tendency to put things off.

I described it in 3 Secret Weapons and How to Do Things, and in several other places, and now I’m giving it its own blog post here, because every single one of you should know it. The Right Now List should be to a procrastinator what the six-shooter is to a gunslinger. Have it at your side and never be afraid to start a task again.

Here’s how it works.

Whenever I notice I’m resisting starting the task at hand (which is basically every time) I put a sticky note in the corner of my desk and write “RNL” at the top, for Right Now List.

That small action is Step One. Get that sticky note down and write those three letters. It takes five seconds.

Step Two is to list the first two or three very small actions you need to take right now — not eventually, but at the absolute beginning of the task you’re currently trying to do.

By “very small actions” I mean physical actions that are so simple you don’t have to wonder about how to do them.

It doesn’t matter what the task is, it will always begin with some very tiny, easy actions. Things like:

• Get out a sheet of paper
• Open Microsoft Excel
• Find the file with your notes from last time
• Write down the chapters you’re supposed to read
• Open Fred’s email and reread it
• Look up the definition of “epistemology”
• Print out the draft so you can mark it up

Write down the first two or three obvious, tiny actions you know you need to do, right at the beginning of the task. There’s your RNL.

Some of these actions will take longer than others, but what they have in common is that it is utterly clear how to do them. There’s no mystery about how to begin. They aren’t intimidating or emotionally challenging. You can just do them, no matter how you feel.

Executing the items on the Right Now List, which might take all of one minute, changes everything. Even though the actions are super easy, they get you inside the larger task they are a part of, and that makes a massive difference to your mental state. Once you open the word processor, find the file, and scroll down to where you left off, most of the psychological resistance to getting started is behind you — because guess what: you have started.

Why it works

As you’ll notice, once you’ve started a task, that task feels very, very different. By making and executing the RNL, you’ve passed from the expansive, ethereal realm of dread and worry into the concrete realm of doing. The escape artist part of the brain powers down, and the details-and-actions part kicks on.

And it wants to continue. The action part of the brain just got some easy wins, and it wants more. It will hunt for the next thing to do, which is also a small thing, and it’s usually obvious.

This is an excellent bit of jujitsu to use on your inner procrastinator. The tiny actions you put on a Right Now List are too easy to trigger the procrastinatory mind’s usual objections — that weaselly inner voice that goes, “So… uh… do I truly need to do this right now?” RNL actions are such easy and immediate wins that it’s more tempting to do them than to make sheepish arguments to yourself about why you should do them later.

Even the most cowardly, procrastinatory mind cannot believe its own arguments here: Is there any way I can double-click this icon tomorrow instead? Maybe I can get up a bit early, make some stiff black coffee, and then scroll down.

RNL to start, RNL to keep going

You can make a new Right Now List at any point in a task or project. There’s always some tiny thing you have to do next. If you’re ever not sure what to do next, the next thing is to make a Right Now List, which is itself a very small and easy thing to do.

To get started, RNL.

To restart, RNL.

When you’re stuck, RNL.

You’ll find you don’t have to think very hard about what should go on the Right Now List. Those first little actions tend to be so obvious that it seems absurd to write them down: finding the appropriate file, clearing a space on your desk, opening a blank document on your second monitor.

Indeed, most people would never write these steps down — and many of them struggle with procrastination. Writing down those tiny steps despite their triviality demonstrates that starting, when it comes down to it, is a small and easy thing — if you clarify what starting looks like.

If starting is half the battle, and you can make that half trivially easy, the other half will seem perfectly doable.

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To learn more about the Right Now List, download my free resource 3 Secret Weapons for the Productivity-Challenged.

If you want a robust method for powering through your to-do list, check out the How to Do Things ebook. It contains more on the Right Now List as well.