5-minute task starter
Give a task you keep putting off five minutes and do only the first small action. You can stop when time is up; you are not committing to the whole project.
Before pressing Start, write down the action: “open the document and add three headings”, “find one invoice”, “read the first question”. “Work on the project” is too broad to count.
For five minutes, do only that. If information is missing, write the question down instead of searching aimlessly.
When time is up, choose: keep going, ask for help, or leave a one-line note on where to start next time. A rough outline or a clearly named obstacle both count as a result.
Partly adapted from HowToLiveBetter by eternity4719 and contributors (CC BY 4.0); Todo & Timer rewrote the steps.
Articles
Popular countdowns
- New Year countdown
- Christmas countdown
- 2027 Chinese postgraduate entrance exam (Kaoyan) countdown
- CET-4 and CET-6 countdown (December 2026)
- Gaokao 2027 countdown
- 2027 CSAT (Suneung) countdown
- 2027 Common Test for University Admissions countdown
- Chinese New Year 2027 countdown
- SAT countdown (5 December 2026)
- AP Exams 2027 countdown
- JLPT countdown (6 December 2026)
- 25-minute active recall timer
- 20-minute weekly review timer
- 20-minute subscription audit timer
Questions
Do I have to finish when the timer ends?
No. Look at what is left and decide whether to continue, stop, or pick an even smaller next step.
Can I change the five minutes?
Yes. Click “Customize this countdown” to change the length and save it to your own account.
How do I break the whole task into steps?
Copy the start-one-small-step checklist, use it to make the task smaller, then come back to the timer.