Eat The Frog
Eat the Frog is a productivity approach created by author Brian Tracey, author of Eat That Frog.
[ Eat That Frog has always felt a strange word choice to my mind, so I always refer to it as Eat the Frog, but the concepts are identical ]
It involves choosing the most crucial, challenging item on your to do list, and doing that first.
This ensures that you don’t procrastinate by doing the easier/more fun tasks and risk “the frog” getting pushed to tomorrow. It means that your day will feel like “smooth sailing” after the frog’s out of the way, no looming sense of dread.
In practice: Simply write your to do list for the day, then circle the task that you’re dreading the most (because it feels hard or unpleasant), and do that first.
A personal note: If anyone were to ask me how I published 40+ books within a 10 year span, I’d attribute it to Eat The Frog. When I’m on deadline, my daily wordcount always comes first (well, after my dog’s needs, and if I had kids, after theirs). But I don’t check email, or social media, or the news, or even my text messages until the writing is done. I don’t do laundry, unload the dishwasher, I don’t even shower until the daily wordcount is done.
Writing is hard, or at least it is for me, therefore writing must come first.
