Eat the Frog: How to Boost Productivity

We all tend to overestimate what we can achieve in a day and underestimate what we could accomplish in a week/month/year/decade. 

Are you too struggling with procrastination, being occupied with tons of work all day, and still not making satisfactory progress on important tasks? Feeling overwhelmed by others’ to-do list and has not prepared your customized one yet? Confused about deciding what work to start your day with? Then it’s time to eat the frog – first thing in the morning to boost your productivity.

Read on to this article to know more about how to get rid of this unhealthy habit of procrastination and kick-start your every day in a much more organized manner!

The majority of people struggle with one common problem – Procrastination. While it may seem like a silly habit, it can cost you greatly. Therefore, it is always important to learn techniques to tackle your procrastination habits. One such technique is “Eat the Frog”.

In this article, we’ll cover the following topics:

• What is “Eat the Frog”
• How do you spot the Frog
• Tips to “Eat the Frog” 
• Benefits of “Eating the Frog”

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

What is Eat the Frog Productivity Method?

The expression “eat that frog” was coined by inspirational speaker and author, Brian Tracy in his best-selling book – Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Accomplish More with Less Time. Learn how this mentality can help amplify your productivity today!

Eat the frog is a time management strategy based on the notion that tackling an unpleasant or challenging task first thing in the morning gives you a feeling of accomplishment and helps to propel you through subsequent tasks. 

How to Eat the Frog?

1. Identify the frog aka the hardest task of the day.
2. Eat the frog. No, not literally! Work on that hardest task without putting it off for later on.
3. Repeat the step everyday to accomplish your tasks – small step at a time.

How to Identify the Frog?

Mark Twain, an American writer once said that if the first thing you have to do every morning is to eat a live frog, you can live through all that day with the satisfaction of knowing that it is the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long probably. 

‘Frog’ is the one most important task which you despise doing each day. It is the one task you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it. Frog, i.e., the most challenging task is the thing you don’t want to do, but need to do.

The eat-the-frog technique is a strategy that helps in the prioritization of tasks to be completed and increases productivity which helps people identify difficult tasks. Below are detailed tips on how you can use the “eat the frog” technique to organize your tasks in a better way. It will help you stop procrastinating and that will improve your productivity.

7 Tips to Eat Your Frog – The Right Way!

For a newbie trying to learn the “Eat the Frog” technique, it might get a little hard. However, there are certain tips that you should follow to eat your frog, the right way:

1. Determine Your Frog

Determining your frog means understanding and listing the tasks that need to be done. Make sure you arrange your tasks in order of priority. So that your most important task or what we say the “frog” remains on the top.

2. Prioritize Your Frog

Once you have decided on the main frog for your to-do list, it’s time to start taking action toward those tasks one by one. Start with the most important work and move towards the least. 

3. Schedule Your Frog as the First Task of the Morning

A great way to start your day is by tackling the most important work in the morning. Therefore, start your day by finishing whatever task that you have given the most priority to. 

4. Split Your Frog down into Smaller Tasks

It is not always right to finish your important task in one go. If your “frog” or priority task is too big, try splitting it down into smaller tasks. This way, your task will be manageable. 

5. Eliminate Your Distractions and Take Action

Distractions are always the biggest enemy for a procrastinator willing to start making a positive change.  Therefore, before getting onto your frog, make sure you cut yourself from any kind of distraction, be it your smartphone, friends, or something else.

6. Adopt a Positive Attitude

When you adopt a positive attitude towards anything, you start to get interested in that work. Consequently, you’ll be motivated to finish that task.

7. Always be Open to New Ideas and be Consistent With the New Habit

When start to inculcate a new habit into your schedule everything in your regime is going to restrain it but try to be a learner in an evolving environment and make sure to be consistent with the new habit. 

Benefits of ‘Eating the Frog’ 

The eating the frog strategy is used by many people and is well-adopted by a lot of successful people. It can do wonders if implemented properly by helping to improve productivity which aids in finishing the task on time. Its effectiveness comes along with the solution for the challenges you are already facing in removing procrastination habits.

Here are some of the well-known benefits of the technique:

(A) Makes prioritizing easy

While it might be hard for you to prioritize your tasks at the start, once you try the “Eat the Frog ” technique, you’ll be on your way to easily prioritizing your tasks as per their importance. 

(B) Increases your productivity

Your important and hardest tasks are the ones that consume the most of your time. Therefore, once you get finished with your top “frog” task, you’ll be on your way to easy tasks and hence, your productivity will ten fold. 

(C) Improved time management

A major problem that many people struggle with is that they spend a lot of their time on less important tasks while the important tasks get left uncompleted. Eating the Frog helps you to complete your priority task in time.

(D) Higher sense of achievement

Once you learn the “Eat the Frog” technique effectively and start finishing your important tasks easily with lots of time in your spare, you’ll have a higher sense of achievement and will feel proud of yourself and motivated towards your goal. 

What is an Example of Eat the Frog Technique?

An example of Eat the Frog technique would be finding the hardest and most important task in your list like writing an urgent article whose deadline is at end of the day. You can put that task at the start of the day and finish the task first before starting with other tasks in your schedule. 

You need to identify your task in this order – Super important to Least Important. In this way, you’ll be able to finish your important and time-consuming tasks first. 

Conclusion

If you ever had one of those days where you have no idea where to start. Try out this ‘eat the frog’ technique of management and see how smoothly you get it all done. ‘Eat the frog’ is a simple yet powerful time management technique to overcome procrastination and bring more focus and concentration to your workday.

Try to emphasize the most challenging task first, that will help you eradicate the procrastinating propensity and you’ll be least distracted from significant tasks. By effectively optimizing your day in an organized way you’ll feel enthusiastic and motivated for other tasks throughout the day, knowing that you’ve accomplished a challenging task. 

By using this time management technique, you can decisively and systematically pick your task. Also getting organized by writing out all tasks and assigning priorities has a positive effect. Conquer hard work early, seize success later – make “Eat The Frog” part of your daily routine today.