The Perks of Working Only 10 Minutes at a Time

An unexpected—yet fruitful!—workday odyssey.

Imagine this scenario: You can only work for 10 minutes at a time. After each brief interval, you must take a significant break before you can start again. Think of it like a hyperfocus pomodoro session, just greatly restricted—and you can’t cheat by extending the time spent working. 

It’s not a thought exercise, at least it hasn’t been for me. Last weekend I hurt my back (again!), and this time the pain was fairly intense. For large parts of the day, I spent much of the time lying on the floor and complaining to no one in particular. 

Except for 10 minutes at a time. For very short sessions, I discovered, I could work and concentrate just fine—before I had to lie back on the floor, stretch, and spend time with my trusty foam roller.

In a way, it reminded me of an earlier experience with bronchitis that limited me to one hour of work per day. But this time, the constraints were even more extreme and inflexible: 

1. I simply couldn’t focus more than 10 minutes at a time

2. During the 10 minutes, everything was fine! I didn’t hurt—I just couldn’t go over the 10 minute period without experiencing pain

3. At the end of every session I had to stretch, lie down, and foam roll. This usually took another 10 minutes or so 

4. After the recovery break, I could usually go back and do another short session with no immediate problems 

It felt like a very weird way of working! But as I said, I soon realized it was that way or nothing. 

As I navigated this new clock-in, clock-out method, I realized something else: the key to making the 10-minute sessions effective was having a clear intention for each one. Without a specific goal in mind, it was way too easy to get distracted. And in that scenario, distraction was costly—it either meant trying to extend the session (which hurt!) or accepting that I'd wasted one of my few available sessions.

So that’s what I did: while I was lying on the floor, I thought about all the things I had to do (or wanted to do), and tried to make a specific plan for the upcoming ten minutes. Before I sat up and looked at my computer again, I knew exactly what I would do. 

Much to my surprise, when I worked this way over the course of a morning, I was still able to finish a good number of tasks! Knowing what I know about purposeful productivity, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. 

It also made me think how often I work in a distracted manner, even with all the training and practice I’ve done on avoiding such a state. Old habits die hard, and it can be helpful to change them up.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting we all limit ourselves to 10-minute work sprints.  Most deep, creative work needs more time. And I’d prefer to not get hurt in the first place!

But sometimes, constraints are helpful—even forced ones.