Eat The Frog

Not literally!! Frog stands for the tasks which we don’t feel like doing because of its difficulty or size. “Eating that frog” means you have to do the task you dread first, before all other tasks. Once you have “eaten” your “frog”, you can rest assured that the worst is behind you, so you’re likely to take on a positive approach throughout your day.

In other words, “the frog” is an abstract representation of the obligation you’ve been putting off, hoping it’ll resolve itself or get done in the meantime — which is a faulty, preconceived idea that leads to decreased performance.

For successfully implementing this productivity hack, you first need to identify your ‘Frog’ on daily basis. It can be a meeting, a file, a physical act or even a call or text message. It may vary depending on your schedule. But you need to ensure its just one task.

Secondly you need to develop a strategy to ‘Eat that Frog’ i.e. to do the task. You have to ensure that you do it using your time and resources optimally. Its not merely about doing it but about doing it effectively.

Finally, you have to set a system to repeat this routine daily. You need to ensure that you allocate sufficient attention to the task daily. It is important to keep on reviewing your ‘Frog’ task on regular basis.

There are various advantages of this technique. It promotes a deep work habit. Eat The Frog requires us to push back against all of those distractions (both external and internal) and prioritize the actions that will actually bring us closer to our goals. It ensures you’re setting your own agenda. Eat The Frog asks you to put your agenda first before any other requests come in to derail your day.

It sets you up to win. Any day that you eat your frog is a good day. Furthermore, following the method means you’ll be making progress on something meaningful on a daily basis. Eat the Frog ensures that you’re using your best hours to do your most mentally taxing work and leaves less important tasks for times when you’ve already exhausted your brain power for the day. Finally, it is a simple method anyone can fall back on at any time with very little time or mental resources required.

The crux of this technique is to do the biggest, least enjoyable thing on your list so you stop procrastinating. This way, every assignment you do afterward doesn’t include the background added stress of a major upcoming project.

References:

http://www.clockify.me/

http://www.todoist.com/

http://www.fellow.app/

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