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There’s a popular productivity strategy that says “if the hardest thing you have to do today is eat a frog, do that first to get it out of the way”. (If this is an actual quote from someone, then I may be paraphrasing). This advice may work for some people. For many of us however, we end up wasting time by staring at the frog, poking at it, swearing at it, or worse, coming up with excuses not to eat it at all, and giving up on the task altogether.
I have a different strategy: There are certain things that I have to do periodically that aren’t much fun, like marketing emails, for instance. I have a specific time slot during the day for doing that type of work. As long as I keep that time slot open every day for writing emails, I know I will get them done. Having it coincide with my morning sugary snack helps too. (For a spoonful of sugar …)
Regular schedules help me in more ways than just getting the one hard thing done, so I make a habit of keeping my workdays structured. Here are a few more examples: In the morning, I write rough drafts of my blog posts. I have a hard time doing anything that requires precision when I’m groggy from sleep, but I’m pretty creative in the mornings and I’m usually in the mood for a good brain dump. My time for emails and admin is late morning, after I’ve digested breakfast and had a work out. I feel like my brain is at its most balanced in the afternoon, so that’s when I do my main work (narrating audiobooks), which requires both creativity and accuracy. In the evening, I really just want to absorb information and do repetitive tasks, so I watch TV or listen to audiobooks while I play mindless puzzle games or work on crafts or visual projects for social media marketing.
If I stick to this schedule every work day, I find that I’m not only more productive, but I’m also a lot happier, because I get to do the things I want to do when my brain and body anticipate doing them.
Some people still may find it more productive to eat the frog first, especially if their mind is otherwise focused on the daunting task and it makes it hard to concentrate on anything else. In that case, I say do it! But if we find ourselves dilly dallying and making excuses, it doesn’t always make sense to do it first when we could be more productive and do other important things now, and eat the frog later when our brain and body tell us that it’s time.
Thanks for reading!
Rebecca H. Lee
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