[LeonB]

It credits lifehack, who credit Dave Allen. Though the ideas/details have been twisted along the way, the “2 minute rule” is straight from Dave. All credits on it lead back there. It’s not a contentious idea, the guy’s still alive. It’s his idea.

[Zanni]

The Lifehack article, by James Clear, is the source of the confusion. Clear takes Allen's Two-Minute Rule as the first part of his own Two-Minute Rule, the second part of which is something like Allen's Next Actions. It's a mess. The article posted here rehashes the second part of Clear's rule, completely divorcing the name of the rule from its original context.

[LeonB]

Yeh you’re right. But the other element he’s throwing in is Fogg’s Tiny Habits. So it’s those three combined, in such a way that he makes it his own, and as demonstrated here, achieves a bit of erasure along the way.

Also - that life hack article - he’s published that same stuff many many times before. It’s basically an extract from his book. He republishes it every where. And it works, he takes ownership of the idea in people’s minds.

[reificator]

You described Dave Allen's 2 minute rule as immediately doing things that take under 2 minutes while determining what work needs to be done, instead of marking them as a task to be done later.

The article describes taking long and/or involved tasks and inventing an artificially limited 2 minute version of them that you can begin more easily.

That's very twisted along the way, and does not seem like Dave Allen's original idea. It seems like a conflation of two very different ideas of his that are meant to solve different problems.

I never said Dave Allen's idea was contentious. I never criticized 'Getting Things Done'. I highlighted a facet of the article that I believed people could easily misread and therefore reject as not applicable to their image of themselves.

Please read my posts without the assumption that I am criticizing Dave Allen or his work.

[LeonB]

Yes, the name "2 minute rule" has been taken, and mixed up with a bunch of other ideas from the same place (and related places). That's why it's twisted.

> I never said Dave Allen's idea was contentious

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you had. I meant, the idea that "the 2 minute rule" is effectively a Dave Allen trademark, is not contentious.

Sorry if I seem antagonistic, totally not my intention. I'm in Queensland sitting underneath a large storm at the moment. I do think we're on the same page re effective executive function techniques themselves. ;)