“If you know you have to swallow a frog, swallow it first thing in the morning. If there are two frogs, swallow the big one first.”-Mark Twain
You know how it goes. You wake up in the morning, and there it is. Ribbit!
You pour your morning coffee, and there it is looking at you. Ribbit!
As you’re working and glance at the clock, there it is looking back at you. Ribbit!
It’s that task or project that you don’t want to do. You know you’ve got to do it, but instead you put it off. Maybe you’ll feel like doing it later.
You won’t.
Getting it done first thing in the morning assures you that, if nothing else, you complete that one thing for the day. Leaving it hanging there may make it such that you don’t get anything else done from worrying about it.
There’s also this: getting those things done first thing in the morning often provides additional motivation to complete a lot of other things that day.
After all, if you’ve already swallowed a couple of frogs, can the day really get any worse?
But wait - what about the whole “plan your day by your productive capacity” bit?
(New readers: if this is unfamiliar to you, check out A General Theory of Productivity, The Daily Heatmap, and The Daily Productivity Planner)
Generally, having those things that you want to do hanging over you ensures that you won’t be at your productive peak due to distraction. Remember, decreasing distractions and increasing motivation makes you more productive.
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(The picture above is of a huge toad we encountered in Costa Rica. That shoe is a size 12 - and we took it like that to give the scale of the toad. So it’s not a frog, but I still wouldn’t want to swallow it!)
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3 comments ↓
Oh, so true. When I put off the project I’ve been dreading (and don’t we always have at least one of those on our plates?) it wrecks the whole day. I consistently try to tackle it first thing in the morning. The sort of wake-up-start-work-don’t-think-just-do-it tactic. Doesn’t always work, but when I get the thing I’m dreading done before lunch? Ah, what a lovely feeling.
Quiet Rebel Writer’s last blog post..Writers Who Matter: Octavia Butler, Sci-Fi Rebel
@ Amy (QRW): That feeling is exactly what prompted me to write this post. Of course, the frog I was swallowing was a day’s worth of grading, so I didn’t get to do the fun stuff - but it needed to be done nonetheless.
[...] One little thing I’ve found that works for me is to schedule the tasks I most enjoy doing for the end of my work day. I can have a pretty good day, but if the last hour is shit then I think I had a shitty day. Ending on a positive note can turn a bad day into a good one. (Charlie from Productive Flourishing made a similar point here.) [...]
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