Do you tend to put off important items, resulting in missed deadlines or rushed work?

A lot of productivity systems and tools are all about getting started, they assume that as long as you’re ticking something off your to-do-list, you’re being productive. But in reality, it can make a big difference which tasks you pick first.

If you put off your most important tasks until the very last second, (hello all the procrastinators nodding your heads right now) you’re not really improving your productivity on the things that really matter. And, worse, you may find yourself missing deadlines or hurting your reputation by rushing through your most challenging work.

The term “eating the frog first” comes from the wisdom of Mark Twain. He once said “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

Boost your productivity:

To get started, schedule your daily tasks from hardest to easiest. You’ll get your most important, intimidating, anxiety-inducing tasks (aka your frog) done while your energy is high and your day will get progressively better.

To delve deeper and gain more self-awareness ask yourself:  “what is it you’re avoiding doing?” “Is this your most important task?”, “what’s really going on here?”, “what is it about this task that makes you want to avoid it?”, “what is one thing you can do that will make this task easier to do?”