Eat the frog: Time management done right
Ever since I was a I kid, I was always very organized. When I was in school, I was even a perfect student. Calendars were my best friends and I actually had a lot of fun planing my activities, doing homework and projects. This even went on after graduating and starting my Bachelor’s at the University of Applied Sciences in St. Pölten for Marketing and Communication (even though I very much wasn’t a perfect student anymore, my time management was still on point). But then what happened? In 2018 I startet my masters program at the University of Applied Science in Graz for Content-Strategy while working at Ketchum Publico — an agency for public relations and communication. And with that, chaos began.
Not kiss the frog — Eat the frog
After realizing quickly that my current system of random work-uni-work-uni circle gets me nowhere and only leads to unproductiveness, I had a talk to one of my colleges at work. He just recently graduated from his master program (with flying colors — of course) and had only one tip for me: Eat. that. frog.
Eat what now? So what does it mean? Eat a frog to improve your time management? Well yes — but it doesn’t have to be taken literally. In fact, the Eat the Frog principle is now widely used in time management and gets more and more popular. This is because it helps to solve such a large and frequent problem (or.. at least so I tell myself): The distraction, postponement and ultimately also the procrastination.
I’ll do it later… I’ll have to do something else… Something else came up… — me, basically always
And before you realize, the day is over and nothing is done. Meanwhile, the stress and pressure will continue to grow for the next days. So to escape this cycle, there is one thing that could help: To Eat the Frog!
So what it up with that frog? What may sound a bit confusing and weird at first has a very simple background and can also be implemented in a simple way: The Eat the Frog principle goes back to the American author and success coach Brian Tracy, who dedicated an entire book to his idea more than 15 years ago. The whole thing has nothing to do with the animal, but only with the metaphor it contains. Tracy uses this frog as a picture for a particularly unpleasant or difficult task. For example, it could be a conversation with the boss you’re afraid of, or a call to a customer you have to tell that the deadline can’t be met, or that the first calculation won’t work and the price will be higher.
In short: Eat the Frog deals with all those tasks that you prefer not to do — and which you postpone again and again for exactly this reason. This is exactly the wrong approach, because it is better to eat the pictorial frog in the morning, because often the unpleasant tasks are especially important.
Advantages for you and me
A seemingly simple piece of advice, right? And also one that has many advantages if you manage to really take it to heart:
You have the necessary energy and time
Although it is understandable that you want to avoid a task that is particularly hard, complex, difficult and unpleasant, you are not doing yourself any favours. The longer the day lasts, the less strength, energy and time you will have. And let’s be honest: If you are exhausted, your concentration is getting worse and worse.
You act according to priorities
Dealing with all the small, pleasant and rather unimportant things makes sure that you have something to do — but that hardly does you any good. If you are only concerned with unimportant matters, it is only a matter of time before problems arise since your urgent and important matters have not received attention.
You are doing something at all
I bet everyone has experienced it before: You’ve set yourself big goals, planned the whole day through, wanted to be productive and ended up just landing on the couch and binge watching Friends again. But with Eat the Frog, you can be sure you’ve done at least the most important thing.
You feel better
You may want to repress the frog that is still approaching you, but you still have it in the back of your mind. This can quickly affect your mood, as the thought of what has been left lying around and unfinished is a real stomach ache. If you stick to the Eat the Frog rule, you are guaranteed a better mood, because you have cleared the biggest obstacle of the day early and can be proud of yourself.
You set the direction for the day
The good mood also has an effect on the rest of the day. As soon as you have the frog behind you, you can start the rest of the day motivated and committed. It won’t get any worse and the other tasks will seem like a piece of cake compared to what you have already achieved.
So I guess from now on it should be easy to complete all my tasks for work and uni while maintaining a healthy social life, exercise, read and be happy.. right.. right?
