The 15-minute rule has been known to change peoples’ lives. It’s a simple concept, but it quickly becomes part of the IM mindset for success.
Here it is:
If you can’t overcome, solve, or resolve a challenge, an obstacle, a confrontation, or a technical glitch within 15 minutes, this is what you do. Step away from the problem and either ask for help or come back to it later.
This rule works for anyone, regardless of your area of expertise or social human status. Don’t write off the simplicity of this rule. It works!
There are unlimited examples that could be mentioned, but here’s a true-life scenario that demonstrates what happens when you don’t put the 15-minute rule to use.
Russ wasn’t a techno genius by even his own definition, but after he had paid someone to create his Internet marketing sales page before his product launch, he decided he wanted to change some of the information. He made several revisions to the content, added new content, and tried to add a photo for impact. Then following an online tutorial, he saved his changes and opened his browser expecting to see phenomenal results.
Instead of viewing an updated sales page, the header was missing, the fonts were three times bigger than previous, and the content was skewed to the right side of the page instead of being centered. So, Russ re-opened the sales page and fiddled with it some more. He repeated this process for more than two hours, and each new version was more messed up than the previous attempts to restore everything to its original state.
Now Russ was extremely frustrated and he didn’t know what to do. He had planned to launch his new product the next day, and now he didn’t even have a website that worked. His site designer lived on the other side of the world and it was hopeless for him to get the designer to help at that time of day.
If Russ would have applied the 15-minute rule, life might have looked a little more positive to him.
As he later discovered, the web designer had made a back-up file of the site and had stored it on Russ’s server. When Russ did get in contact with the designer, the original site was deployed and everything was back to normal.
That’s when Russ decided that he would either learn how to make website changes without creating havoc to his site, or he would pay someone a monthly website maintenance fee to make the changes for him. Problem solved.
The advantage of applying the 15-minute rule to every aspect of your life means that you’ll become less frustrated, you’ll be more productive, and you’ll learn how to reach out for help, when maybe before you were too proud or stubborn.
Why struggle? It just leads to more stress.
Don’t ever spend more than 15 minutes struggling with something. Stop. Walk away. Get help.
We all need to make a start at one point or another. Why not let it be a free place?
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