You might think I’m a terrible vegetarian for telling your to eat a frog. I mean, I am a terrible vegetarian but that’s a different story.
I don’t mean a physical frog. I mean your emotional frog. Or something like that.
Eat That Frog is actually a book about productivity by Brain Tracy. I’m not here to talk about the whole book as I’ve not actually read the whole thing, but I want to talk about the title: The theory of eating your frog. Which inspired the book, was originally by Mark Twain.
Mark Twain once said that if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worse things that is going to happen to you all day long. Your frog is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it.
We’ve all been there – when we have a list of tasks to do, it’s so easy to do the ones we WANT to do first. Or the easiest, or the ones that are less stressful. Then you leave the worst until last and as your energy is already half spent, you want to do them even less than before.
This can then lead to procrastination, which is such a productivity killer.
This is why, whenever you have a list of things to d0 – whether at work at home, do the task you are dreading the most first.
This means you can get on with your day without being distracted by that feeling of dread that can stop us focusing on the rest of our to-do list. It also makes the rest of the day slightly more enjoyable.
So this is a short reminder for you to get those dreaded tasks over with first thing, then enjoy the rest of the day!
Good luck!
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I should start doing that rather than leaving the unwanted tasks to do last and end up never doing them. If I can finish them first, then it will probably make things easier for me. Thanks for the reminder! x
I’m guilty of procrastination, so this is a great tip for me, thank you 🙂
Yes indeed! Guilty!
I’ve been doing this at work lately! What’s the one conversation I’m deding to have or the one task I know will leave me feeling pants? To the top of the list it goes, ripped off like a plaster, then I can have a brew, calm down, and get on with the more plesant stuff I need to do!
NOM frogs NOM!
Sarah 🙂
Funnily enough, I was only reading something in Glamour/Cosmo the other day about eating your frog. It makes a lot of sense, actually, and is a really good way to be productive!
Sounds good! Starting with the strongest things just when the energy is at its peak, I will have it in my head because lately I have come to collapse in the middle of the day!
If we all did that think how productive we would be. It’s very easy to put tasks off and defer to something else Lucy x