Eat a frog

How is your to-do list looking?

Today’s Mental Sunshine comes from a quote from Mark Twain:

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.

No, this email is not about diet tips!

I don’t know about you, but I often have tasks on my to-do list that sit there for several days (perhaps even weeks!) that I just don’t feel like tackling.

They’re not even that difficult or time consuming; perhaps it’s a fiddly job or involves doing something I don’t particularly enjoy.

Those are the frogs.

They sit there on your to-do list, perhaps being transferred from one day or week to the next, making you feel a particular sense of dread because you just don’t want to tackle them.

It’s like eating a frog.

Quite often though, once you eat the frog, you find out it wasn’t as big or as bad as you thought.

And once it’s been crossed off your to-do list, there’s a certain sense of accomplishment.

Brian Tracy wrote an entire book about this called?Eat That Frog

The thing is, if you keep these things on your to-do list but avoid doing them, they hold you back.

You waste precious moments deciding not to do them each time you look at your list.

You waste precious time telling yourself off and feeling rubbish for not doing them.

Once that frog is eaten, the hard thing is done - your day will be downhill from that point onward.

And you’ll feel brilliant too!

Ticking a frog off your list feels so much better than ticking off five other things while you’re avoiding that one thing!

Give it a go, let me know how you get on!