EAT THAT FROG - First thing in the morning

Eat That Frog

As famously quoted by Mark Twain, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” Your frog is the task that will have the greatest impact on achieving your goals, and the task that you are most likely to procrastinate starting.

Another version of this saying is, "If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first! In other words, if you have two important tasks before you, start with the biggest, hardest, and most important task first.

What is it about eating a FROG…Discipline yourself to begin immediately and then to persist until the task is complete before you go on to something else. You must resist the temptation to start with the easier task. You must also continually remind yourself that one of the most important decisions you make each day is your choice of what you will do immediately and what you will do later, or postpone indefinitely.

The key to reaching high levels of performance and productivity is for you to develop the lifelong habit of tackling your major task first thing each morning. Do not spend excessive time planning what you will do.

You must develop the routine of "eating your frog" before you do anything else and without taking too much time to think about it. Successful, effective people are those who launch directly into their major tasks and then discipline themselves to work steadily and single-mindedly until those tasks are complete. ?With only so much time in the day, it is crucial to use that time adequately. Unfortunately, procrastination is a common habit that interrupts the ability to make the most out of your time. Also in most cases, the one thing that stopped you from being what you meant to be or to achieve.

Procrastination is productivity's worst enemy. To procrastinate means to delay a task, or even several tasks, that should be a priority. Procrastinators understand their responsibilities, yet actively choose to focus on less important tasks, more satisfying pastimes.?The ability to overcome procrastination and tackle the important actions that have the biggest positive impact in your life is a hallmark of the most successful people out there.?Did you know that to procrastinate is a bad habit? ?It will slow down your ability to reach your goals and full potential.

To tell you this means nothing unless we understand why we procrastinate.?There are many reasons why we tend to procrastinate, in our workshop, we will go into this a bit deeper and here is a few reasons

·???No clear deadline

·???Inadequate resources available

·???Don’t know where to begin

·???Task feels overwhelming

·???No passion for doing the work

·???Fear of failure or success

Do you know that overcoming your procrastination could have the greatest impact on your success than any other quality or skill you can develop? Your ability to select your most important task, as well as start on that task and get it done both quickly will have the greatest impact on your success

Here are some ways to get moving on those tough tasks.

Delete it. What are the consequences of not doing the task at all? Consider the 80/20 rule; maybe it does not need to be done in the first place.

Delegate. If the task is important, ask yourself if it is really something that you are responsible for doing in the first place. Know your job description and ask if the task is part of your responsibilities. Can the task be given to someone else?

Do it now. Postponing an important task that needs to be done only creates feelings of anxiety and stress. Do it as early in the day as you can.

Ask for advice. Asking for help from a trusted mentor, supervisor, coach, or expert can give you some??great insight on where to start and the steps for completing a project.

Chop it up. Break large projects into milestones, and then into actionable steps. Huge things don’t look as big when you break it down as small as you can. I leave you with this acronym S.T.I.N.G

Procrastination may be the result of feeling overwhelmed. To take the S.T.I.N.G. out of feeling overwhelmed about a task, follow these steps:

·???Select one task to do at a time.

·???Time yourself for no more than one hour.

·???Ignore everything else during that time.

·???No breaks or interruptions should be permitted.

·???Give yourself a reward when the time is up.

?Have an intervention with yourself and Eat that Frog first thing in the morning.