A lovely piece from the great Gina Trapani. The founder of Lifehacker.com discusses procrastination at work and one tactic for addressing it: eating a frog!
Do your worst task first. By “worst” I mean “most important,” and by “most important” I mean the task you’re most likely to procrastinate on. The deadline you’re dreading, the slides for the presentation you’re terrified of giving, the research you’re sure will turn up information you don’t want to know. Do it, before you do anything else, before you have time to think about it too much.
Yes, but what about the frog?
Author Brian Tracy calls this “eating your frog,” quoting Mark Twain. Twain famously said that if the first thing you do in the morning is eat a live frog, you can go through the rest of the day knowing the worst is behind you. Your frog is your worst task, and you should do it first thing in the morning.
A lot of procrastination is due to having a low tolerance for frustration. And frustration is experienced whenever we have to tackle something challenging. Feeling anxious about anticipated frustration can lead us to indefinitely putting off the difficult task at hand. So it doesn’t get addressed, potentially increasing our anxiety about it.
How to break the cycle?
Actually completely an anxiety-inducing task could go some way to challenging how we feel about it. It can also serve to demonstrate our own ability (self-efficacy) in that we experience some success which can lower the anxiety associated with a challenging task.
In other words, eating a little frog.
Read on for the full article.
