Eat the Frog Meaning: Why Do the Hard Things First (2024)

No matter how much you love your work, there are probably tasks you’d rather avoid.

A marketer may enjoy designing an impactful email campaign but dread maintaining databases. And a developer might look forward to solving a particularly challenging piece of code but dislike client meetings.

It’s normal not to love every task. Some activities just aren’t as fulfilling or attention-holding as others. And you might find yourself procrastinating the ones you don’t look forward to.

But avoiding something you dislike doesn’t make it go away. Sometimes, it’s better to rip the bandage off, complete your biggest tasks, and move on. To do this is to eat the frog, meaning that you get your least favorite to-dos out of the way and free yourself up to savor the rest of your workday.

What does “eat the frog” mean?

“Eat the frog” is a saying that motivational speaker Brian Tracy coined. It means completing difficult, frustrating, or tedious tasks —also known as frogs — before the ones you’d rather do, getting them over with. Tracy’s best-selling book from 2001, Eat That Frog!, explores this task prioritization strategy.

But the real origin of this saying is fuzzy. Mark Twain reportedly wrote, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” But according to Quote Investigator, there isn’t much evidence that he actually said this. The original idea might have stemmed from Nicolas Chamfort, a French writer who thought up a similar concept with a toad instead.

Regardless of the frog’s origin, anti-procrastinators like Tracy adopted this quote to fit the modern professional landscape. The goal is to do the hard things first and breeze through the rest of your work. Eating a frog every morning can make your day more enjoyable and help you finish more tasks.

Eat the frog technique: Does it work?

Eating the frog can boost productivity —that is, if it works for you. Like any other task prioritization technique, it’s not perfect, and it doesn’t apply to every single situation.

If you find yourself with an overwhelming amount of frogs in your day, it could be the symptom of a larger problem. Maybe you aren’t connecting with your work or don’t have the skills to complete tasks with confidence. It could be time for a career change or an upskilling session. When in doubt, talk to your manager. They might be able to adjust the quality or quantity of your workload.

But if you have just a couple of unappealing activities on your task list every day, here’s how the frog method can help:

1. Get tough work done when you’re sharp

Not everyone is a morning person. But early in the day, you absorb more vitamin D and generally feel more productive. Tackling your least favorite tasks when you have plenty of mental energy helps you finish them faster. When you reach the afternoon slump, delve into an activity that holds your attention or that you enjoy more to wake yourself up.

2. Prioritize tasks

The core meaning of eating the frog tackles the tasks you don’t like but have to do. An unimportant task that you don’t enjoy isn’t a frog because you can likely skip or delegate it. Using this method helps you weed out those lesser tasks and focus on the frogs, which have more weight.

Once you know when to complete the frogs on your to-do list, you can prioritize the rest of your tasks in the time you have left over. If it takes you two hours to clean up a database, you still have a couple of morning hours and the whole afternoon to finish the rest of your work. This is better than dragging your feet, dreading doing the other task at the end of your day.

3. Minimize multitasking

If you have to swallow a frog, you want to get it over with quickly. This motivates you to focus, avoid distractions, and minimize multitasking, all of which can help you work faster.

While simultaneously checking your email, updating a spreadsheet, and chatting with coworkers may make you feel like an expert juggler, multitasking doesn’t work. Doing too much at once drives irritability and anxiety, and it takes you out of your flow state.

Who should use the eat the frog technique?

Everyone has different ways of finishing tasks efficiently, so eating the frog might not work for everyone. You may find that you’re better at banging out demanding activities in the afternoon or prefer completing them between the ones you like. But the technique is worth trying if you find yourself in one of the following categories:

People who procrastinate frequently

If you rush through challenging tasks before signing off for the day, you may not submit your best work. Eating the frog is a time management technique that can help you complete hard activities more successfully.

Instead of procrastinating your most strenuous work for late in the day when you’re tired, stressed, and ready to relax, push yourself to eat your frogs early. You may notice an uptick in the quality of work and your happiness doing it. Nobody likes to perform an unsavory task when they’re already tired.

People struggling to maximize productivity

Whether you’re starting a new job or experiencing changes at work, it can be hard to structure your day with productivity in mind. Maybe you jump back and forth between different types of tasks, or you avoid difficult ones until they’re late.

You can overcome procrastination and have a more productive workflow by ticking off weighty tasks instead of completing them at random. Try using a priority matrix to discover which frogs are most important, and place them earlier in your schedule. This helps you experiment with your workflow and discover what works best for you.

People unsure about their roles

Maybe your to-do list is full of tasks you feel neutrally about, or you feel like you’re in a dead-end job. Staying in a mediocre role might work for a while, but you could burn out without enough excitement or challenge. Implementing frog-eating logic could highlight this problem and give you more insight into what you really enjoy.

Imagine you’re a project manager who’s unsure about whether to switch jobs. You take a look at the roles and responsibilities and decide to complete small administrative tasks later in the day because you enjoy them more than meetings and brainstorming sessions. This shows you that your next role should be something that flexes your organizational skills with fewer social interactions.

How to spot a frog

Maybe you have a gut feeling about which activities are frogs, or you already know exactly which ones are more difficult for you. If that’s the case, you can jump right into reprioritization.

But if you’re having trouble identifying which activities to tick off first, use the following guidelines to pinpoint them:

• Activities that take several hours: Long tasks can affect the flow of your day and drain your energy supply. If you’re avoiding a necessary task because it takes too long, it’s probably a frog.

• Tasks that challenge you: Everyone enjoys a challenge sometimes, but if you repeatedly feel like doing a specific task is too hard for you, you may come to dislike it. These demanding activities you don’t enjoy doing are often frogs. Remember that these tasks are difficult, but not impossible.

• Activities that bore you: Some tedious tasks, like organizing your email inbox, won’t have a large impact on your day-to-day workflow, making them easier to procrastinate. But the tasks that are both monotonous and mandatory are frogs because you have to do them soon.

5 tips for eating the frog

Eating the frog is a straightforward technique: get challenging work out of the way first. But when you have lots on your plate, it’s easier said than done.

Here’s how to maximize productivity and eat the frog the right way:

1. Eat frogs first thing

The technique relies on completing unenjoyable tasks first — and strictly so. Don’t linger in the breakroom or reply to easy emails first thing in the morning. Those pleasant distractions might make it harder to work up the initiative to complete that pending task. The tasks you enjoy will taste much sweeter if you put the frog behind you first.

2. Make it a work habit

Building habits automates behaviors, meaning that if you repeatedly tick off your frogs first thing, they’ll eventually become part of your rhythm. You might even start to take pleasure in getting it out of the way when you see that doing so makes the rest of your day easier.

Consistently completing frogs can also empower and motivate you. You’ll realize that you can ace difficult work even if you don’t enjoy it, setting the stage for more productive days and weeks.

3. Plan frogs the night before

Selecting your frog in the morning can be a disheartening start to your day, and that lack of motivation won’t help you complete the challenging work ahead. Instead, choose your frog the night before. Then you can wind down, relax, and rely on your energized morning self to complete the task tomorrow.

4. Prioritize frogs

Sometimes, you’ll have multiple frogs but not enough morning hours to complete them all. You’ll have to weigh them all by the time, energy, and resources they take to complete.

When in doubt, select the most impactful tasks first. If you have to complete an important document to satisfy a delivery, that frog takes priority. If one of the activities drives project progress or improves your relationship with a client, it should be your first concern.

5. Make it pleasant

Frogs may be unpleasant, but your working environment doesn’t have to be. Put on your favorite music for concentration and enjoy a beverage you love while you work. Your environment can put you in the right headspace to get things done.

Treat yourself to a brief break after you finish a big task to relax and reward yourself. Taking a quick walk can help you clear your mind and reset before tackling the rest of your day. You may also want to institute a longer-term reward system, like ordering takeout instead of cooking on Friday night to congratulate yourself on all the frogs you ate.

Eat your frogs and grow

There’s no such thing as a perfect job. Everyone has to eat the frog, meaning you’re not alone in pushing through monotonous, challenging, or unenjoyable work.

But just like eating a nutritious lunch boosts your health, gulping down proverbial frogs propels growth. This productivity method teaches you grit and fosters faith in your ability to perform any task. And you may find that frog tasks become more manageable over time, thanks to your improving skills.

Published January 24, 2024