Written in exactly 15 mins
Proof that a quarter of an hour is special
This blog post was written in 15 minutes and I took a recording of that entire process, which is towards the end of this article. I haven’t seen a video like this of someone writing, spelling out their thought processes as they go, so I hope it’s refreshing and instructive. Particularly to make the point that much can be done in 15 minutes even by a human without the use of AI. Note: this italicised section was written outside of the 15 minutes - as is clear from the video.
We can do a lot in 15 minutes. I will prove this in the next quarter of an hour of my life, from 1715 to 1730 on Wednesday February 4th 2026.
Now I have only 11 minutes…
My thesis is that we are slowed down so much by procrastination, distractions and the thoughts that just occur to us. But when we cut these out, we can do plenty in a very short space of time.
15 minutes is special. It stacks nicely to 30 and then 60, such is the numerical flexibility (many factors) of the number 60. As you may know if you’ve read Timeboxing, I advocate 15-, 30- and 60minute timeboxes in general. These work well together and hvin just three (small, medium, large) means that the cognitive effort involved in selection is manageable. I also believe that 15 minutes is just enough to get some meaningful work done. This exercise is intended, of course, to demonstrate exactly that. On those days when I have timeboxed mostly 15-minute timeboxes, I invariably feel that I have achieved the most. I also happen to have just 15 minutes right now - life has become especially hectic. So 15-minutes is special.
Anothehr benefit to imposing a somewhat artificial cap and time limit is that what may have felt like a bit of a chore, becomes a game. How many words can I write per minute? How many can I get done in 15? This is fun, for me, anyway.
I hope you like the self-referential nature of this post. What I will inevitably be sacrificing in quality, I believe I’ll be making up with the meta point that looms large, even in this very sentence. There’s a chapter in the book called This Very Chapter, which does a similar thing. Like the book in The Neverending Story.
I come to the last paragraph. Now I have just 3 minutes left and I need to run a spell check. I think I will make available the screenrecording of the past 15 minutes of my life, in case you either need proof or persuasion that this is possible and valuable.
Marc
Links
Timeboxing, the book (US)
Timeboxing, the book (UK)
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Impressive that you work so efficiently! Especially the idea that you could run the spellcheck, upload the recording, and do all the final publishing stuff in three minutes. Great demo.
I am glad you chose to do this without AI. And the demonstration was instructive and helpful for someone like me who keeps going on infinite loops trying to perfect what i am trying to say. (for days and months) Seeing you work on the video helped me understand how distractions and perfectionism ruin my consistency and also the divergent thought patterns i keep getting into. Thanks for doing this.
P.S - I finished almost 60% of Timeboxing and then gave up. I am going to resume that.