EAT THAT FROG. This is a book by Bryan Tracy centered on the concept of doing the hard thing/undesireable thing first!! Getting it over with!
I did that this month. I tackled a project I have procrastinated on for a good two years.
Which was, taking photos of my kids’ art and uploading them to an app that saves it all for me.
This bin of art has been sitting in my office and filling up or a while now. (when they have art I write their name and date on the back so I can have that info when I go to archive it)
This bin of art was overflowing in my office.
It is always there, reminding me of what I SHOULD be doing but am NOT doing
So, as we entered into January and I had an afternoon where I could decide how to spend my time, I thought, “I’m feeling restless, maybe unproductive, what is a frog I could eat?”
And so I didn’t stop and talk myself out of this, I pulled out the art bin and I spent just over an hour making a big dent in this art pile (getting to 2020 art too!)
I feel accomplished and relieved, and even though I’m not done, I know I’ve made the amount of work that much less for when I am ready to tackle the rest.
(and yes, I recycle all the art once I have archived it, unless it is something that seems extra special then I file it away)
TWO THINGS ABOUT EATING THE FROG (procrastination).
- ONE We should eat the frog, not just to make progress on our priorities, but because of how we will feel about ourselves when we do – or I should say, to avoid how we feel about ourselves when we don’t.
- When we procrastinate on something, over and over, eventually we start to feel gross about ourselves. We call ourselves lazy, or unmotivated, or bad at time management. Or we downplay the need to work on ‘the thing’ after all.
The way we handle our procrastination usually just makes the hard thing harder.
- When we procrastinate on something, over and over, eventually we start to feel gross about ourselves. We call ourselves lazy, or unmotivated, or bad at time management. Or we downplay the need to work on ‘the thing’ after all.
- TWO As I will always say, this isn’t an all-or-nothing situation. You don’t ALWAYS have to eat the frog, it doesn’t make you a better human if you do.
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- Just use this as a tool you can turn to when you feel that taking action will help you stop procrastinating on things that are important to you.
More on procrastination:
169. Moms Simplifying Q+A: Toddler MomLife, Procrastination and Decluttering
153. How to move from ambivalent to ambitious (making change takes more than just willpower)
Recently Decluttered is a feature periodically shared in the Simple Saturdays email. You can find the Recently Decluttered Archives here