DREIESKIVA​|Roald Kvam

“Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte

If you have five minutes to think about something, you actually have a lot. You don’t need much time to gain significant ground in your thinking.

You can spend five minutes on a problem and actually cover a lot.

If you have a framework.

In life and work, we often end up with short blocks of time—between meetings, between tasks. Life happens, and the turns life takes are rarely well signposted… It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking we don’t have enough time to process what’s knocking around in our heads.

The reality is that using short time blocks to train your thinking while solving your problems is incredibly effective.

The key is the framework.

With a time management technique, you can establish a structured approach to thinking that focuses your mind and helps you identify goals, explore options, narrow down, and conclude—even in just a few minutes.

In his book De Bono’s Thinking Course, Revised Edition (1994), Edward De Bono shares the idea and approach of what he calls “Five-Minute Thinks”:

1st minute: Goal and Task
By minute number 2: Expand and Explore
From the 3rd minute: Narrow and Conclude

By limiting your time, you challenge your thoughts to focus and fully engage in a short sprint. And with Five-Minute Thinks—just like any training—you get better with practice.

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1st minute: Goal and task

The outcome of the first minute should be that your goal and task are clearly defined.

Your goal or task can be as broad or as specific as you want. The key is to set the goal or task. That’s all you need to do in the first minute. For example, your goal could be to assess something to improve it. Or to identify problems. Or to engage in a creative exercise like “How else could I…” or “How might abc and 123 be made more useful?”

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By minute number 2: Expand and explore

Now it’s time to deepen and broaden the issue, create a mental map, and explore ideas and alternatives.

In this part, you open up. Don’t be critical or judgmental—let your thoughts and ideas flow freely. Allow what you know and whatever comes up to take the stage. You might, for example, reflect on your experience, analyze the situation, or look for familiar patterns.

Keep it positive. Keep it open. Keep it flowing.
According to De Bono, this is about “opening up the field, filling in the map, exploring the territory.”

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From 3rd minute: Narrow and conclude

This is where you zoom in on the core of the problem. Try to understand what’s really in front of you and come to the clearest conclusion you can within the time frame you’ve given yourself. This conclusion could be a solution, a creative idea, an alternative approach, or simply a perspective you choose to stand on—or stand for.

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Do you have five minutes?
Why not test your ability to define, expand, explore, and narrow a problem? Now you have the framework. The practice is up to you. And practice makes progress!