I am slightly obsessed with the power of five minutes.
This week, I gave my writers a mission. (I run a special writers’ page for all my clients, past and present, and I throw four or five ideas at them every week.) I asked them to set their timers for five minutes and pick a word or a thought and write as fast and hard as they could to that until the beep went.
I don’t like asking any of my clients to do something I won’t do myself, and so I did do it, from Monday to Friday: showing up and writing fast.
Because I write every single day, through wind and weather, through grumpiness and scratchiness, through busyness and ease, I don’t often do the five minute speed exercise. My writing muscles are as strong and taut and trained as those of the racing horses I watched at Sandown this afternoon. So it was fascinating to go back to the five minutes.
I produced a lot and it was better than I thought and it was easier than I thought. It was in some ways challenging and in some ways liberating. And it is the best way to outrun the You Can’t gremlins, which is what it was designed for.
I adapted this idea from a brilliant notion by Dorothea Brande, who wrote what I still consider the best book ever about writing. I chose five minutes because it is long enough to get some words on the page but not too long to overwhelm and alarm the frightened mind.
And I’ve been thinking about the power of five minutes in many other contexts. If I’ve got a manic day, I’ll go and stand next to my red mare in her green field for five minutes and feel the dreamy peace coming off her and connect to her on what I think of as the atomic level. Sometimes, if the light is coming from the right direction, she’ll give me a glimpse of the universe. (She is very kind, like that.) Five minutes is enough to think about relationship and gratitude and love, and plenty of time to reset the nervous system.
Sometimes, I’ll schedule in five minutes of joy, because I’ve started to see that joy is non-negotiable, even on the darkest day. Especially on the darkest day.
If I am really focused, I can make something delicious to eat in five minutes. Five minutes on the telephone to a friend is enough to make me smile and to lift my spirits. Spending five minutes of goofy canine love with Darwin the Dog and Stanley the Manly is a profound restorative.
I’m experimenting with creating five minutes of mental and emotional safety, or ease, or rest. (I think none of us modern humans get enough rest.)
There are times when I’ll stare in delight at the trees for five minutes, or listen to songs for five minutes, or dance for five minutes.
Everyone is so busy, including me. But we’ve all got five minutes.
PS. I cheated slightly and wrote this in seven minutes. Often, I’ll give you a lot more than that. I’ll do a great deal of wandering, pondering contemplation before I create the Cup of Coffee posts. But there are days when I’m tired and my brain is empty and five minutes are all I’ve got. It’s reassuring to know that this can be enough.