Eat the frog first!
The new norm of working from home is not easy. You constantly get distracted and take 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there, a little longer for lunch, and before you know it it's 3pm and you've achieved very little. This means you end up working late or not doing your job very well and both aren't really ideal.
Having a to-do list and organizing your days into 1-2-hour blocks may help because you will know what needs to be done by when. But if you want to plan your time even more efficiently “Eat the frog!” first. My former nutrition school’s head tutor, Tom Bainbridge from BTN Academy, had this brilliant advice in his newsletter, and I have to say it works.
Mark Twain once said that if you have to eat a frog it's best to do it first thing in the morning, and if you have to eat two frogs you should probably eat the bigger one first.
Do the thing you are least looking forward to first!
“There are a ton of benefits to this:
- Usually it takes way less time than you think.
- It prevents that thing from looming over you all day. Of course, the 2 hours you spend doing it might suck but once you're done, it stops. If that thing is on your back for a whole 9-5 because you wait until you can't avoid it anymore then it sucks for 8 hours instead. Rip off the bandaid and get it over with!
- It gives you freedom to do the things you DO want to do. Procrastinating by scrolling social media isn't actually fun, it's just more fun than the work you're avoiding, but eventually you'll have to do that unpleasant stuff and by the time you do you're out of time to do the thing you actually enjoy. Rather than your day consisting of hard work and fun stuff, it consists of scrolling and work - when people say discipline = freedom this is what they mean.
So, for those who are working from home doing their regular jobs or working in other settings where they are in charge of their own time:
Work out what your frog is.
Eat it first.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Simple as hell and not a new idea, but sometimes great things bear repeating”.
