I use The 2-Minute Rule all the time. It stems from David Allen and his Getting Things Done.
The 2-Minute Rule
For every decision you need to make, take up to two minutes to decide your course of action. Completing your thinking in advance will help your Future self.
In practice, I most often apply it to cleaning out my various inboxes. It helps me focus on the task of GTD processing, even though now it is second nature.
For each item I have at most two minutes to decide if I am going to:
- Take action myself—and if I can do that within the two minutes I do.
- Delegate an action
- File it
- Bin it