The two minute rule is important and useful, but you have to be sure it doesn’t interrupt a current top priority task.

When you work on something important, it’s better to follow through to its entire allocated time, and not stop to do a 2-minute activity that popped up unexpectedly. Because you will lose in fact another 15 minutes, the time it takes your brain to re-adapt to the original activity you were doing.

Just make a note, and do a whole list of 2 minutes as a batch later.

I would distinguish between procrastination, deliberation and relaxation. I think people who are procrastinating are actually deliberating, but have clarified their internal conflict or identified its elements. There may be good reasons for intuitively holding back on something, and in those cases it’s a good idea to sit with your felt sense of the issue and let it clarify itself.

This post was meant to address how to move on a concern that’s on your mind in that very moment. If you’re worried about X, what can you do right now it undo that worry. At the moment of concern, I think telling people to relax is like telling poor people that they would be better off with more money. You don’t necessarily have to do anything about what’s bothering you as long as you know what to do to resolve it. The “What can you do right now?” question is more of a thinking exercise than a dictum for living. As long as idleness isn’t a manifestation of apathy, I’m all in favor of idleness. Experiences matter at least as much as actions.

But for those of us who aspire for productivity and do not steal sweet moments of doing nothing (the majority of your readers I suspect), you do make a very good point.