The Principle
David Allen's rule: if a task takes less than two minutes, do it immediately. The overhead of capturing and scheduling exceeds just doing it. [90][3]
David Allen's rule: if a task takes less than two minutes, do it immediately. The overhead of capturing and scheduling exceeds just doing it. [90][3]
Key Statistic
No single statistic — practitioner heuristic with indirect empirical support, not a tested threshold.
What The Research Shows
Practitioner-derived from GTD (Allen, 2001) [90]. Consistent with cognitive offloading: unresolved tasks create interference [3]. Claessens et al. (2007) found reducing backlog improves performance [86]. The threshold is arbitrary but functional.
Practitioner-derived from GTD (Allen, 2001) [90]. Consistent with cognitive offloading: unresolved tasks create interference [3]. Claessens et al. (2007) found reducing backlog improves performance [86]. The threshold is arbitrary but functional.
Common Myths
Myth: "Capture and schedule everything." Reality: For tiny tasks, organising costs more than doing [90].
Myth: "Capture and schedule everything." Reality: For tiny tasks, organising costs more than doing [90].
How Aftertone Applies This
[Coming Soon] Capture flow prompts: "Under 2 minutes? Do it now and mark done." Keeps inbox lean.
Further Reading
Allen, D. (2001). Getting Things Done. Penguin. ISBN: 978-0142000281
Allen, D. (2001). Getting Things Done. Penguin. ISBN: 978-0142000281
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