Re:How to Do Hard Things
by tmountain on Monday April 03, 2023 @09:49PM
(#35433949)
Starting your day with getting the most unpleasant tasks out of the way is a powerful tactic, and it’s something my friend calls “eating the frog”.
I find that most unpleasant things are actually just hard to get started with, and I can actually find myself enjoying them (working out, etc) once I’m in flow.
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> calls “eating the frog”
Popularized by Brian Tracy with the book "Eat that Frog - Stop procrastinating and get more done in less time",
the idea is attributed to Mark Twain there, but was actually recorded by Nicolas Chamfort: "One should eat a frog every morning, to find the rest of the day less disgusting, if you have to spend it in the world". The translation from the French tradition of the "nausea" to pragmatist Union America, where it came to mean "do the hardest first as a strategy", fits.