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The 5-second rule goes corporate
Plus, do the hard stuff first
Emily Sheen
June 10, 2026
Hi everyone,
This week I’m sharing why psychology says we should get the difficult stuff over with before we move to the fun stuff. Also, it turns out the 5-second rule is good for more than just snacks.
Enjoy!
Emily
Try
Small shifts to help you live bigger
The 5-second rule goes corporate
Apparently, the 5-second rule is science-backed. It’s served me well so far for errant food scraps, at least.
What if we also gave our teams a 5-second free pass?
Innovation involves lots of failure, but we rarely encourage ourselves to adopt a five-second rule when we’re brainstorming, inventing or developing what’s next.
Please do.
Tiny mistakes are fixable. Avoiding them is how we get stuck.
Hear
Serendipitous life advice
Gaurav Jain reminds us that what we resist persists
Avoiding one conversation creates 10 harder ones
Read
Fresh perspectives on life and work
Do The Hard Stuff First
What can we learn from all-inclusive holidays? A whole lot, according to James Clear. In this article he explains why we’re wired to experience more pleasure later if we’ve gone through the pain first.
His lessons come from carefully crafted customer experiences, designed to get the pain of paying out of the way before the fun begins.
Savour
A little something to feed one of the 5 senses. This week: taste.
📍 Tell Camellia
I’ve been waiting to see a tea theme in a cocktail bar concept for years. Hong Kong’s Tell Camellia nails it, swapping smoky mescals for lapsang souchong.
Thanks for reading!
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