One of the fun-nest productivity techniques I have come across is called ‘Eat the Frog’, which takes off from a quote that’s often attributed to Mark Twain.
“Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”
(Note: This does sound like something Mark Twain would say. But I haven’t found any mention of where he said or wrote this.)
Eating a live frog is perhaps one of the most disgusting things you can do. (Unless, of course, you are a snake, and you find frogs delicious. But then again, you also eat rats. So, forgive me if I don’t take tips on fine dining from you.) Anyway, according to ‘Eat the Frog’, you do the thing that feels as disgusting or difficult as eating a frog as soon as you can in the day.
The question, of course, is what is the frog in your life.
The frog might take many different shapes: Going a daily run, attending a class that’ll level up your skills, setting up a meditation practice, or ploughing your way through the first draft of your novel.
So, you take this action every day as soon as possible – preferably first thing in the morning.
But here’s the thing – going on a run is not difficult. Nor is typing words on the keyboard or attending an online class. In other words, the act of running or meditating or writing is not the frog.
The frog is a different beast altogether. In my sightings, the frog takes the form of an icky, sludgy reluctance to do the things that you swore were important to you.
In his book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield calls it ‘The Resistance’.
It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.
The artist Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal) gives it a more eloquent name, ‘The Blerch‘.
The Blerch represents all forms of gluttony, apathy, and indifference that plague my life.
I have named the frog Ick-a-lot. I have also knighted him because he has won countless battles with Reason and Better Sense. So my frog is Sir Ick-a-lot.
Why am I spending so many words naming the frog?
- It’s cool to name things – especially frogs.
- Just as it is essential to clarify what is truly important to me, I believe it is essential to clearly identify what is holding me back from doing what I have deemed important to me.
Okay, so now I have named the frog and redefined what it is. What next?
Initially, I thought, “Well, now that I have identified the enemy, I need to quell it – that is, prevent it from existing – before doing all the things that are important to me.”
That strategy failed spectacularly. Turns out the expectation that I will one day defeat the frog and then never have to feel its icky sludgy-ness IS the frog.
The trick is to understand that the frog is a part of you forever. Importantly, you can do the things that are important to you despite this.
- I accept that it will suck to put in the work sometimes.
(Do the work even if you don’t feel like it.) - I accept that the results will not meet my lofty standards.
(Measure effort, not results.) - I accept that I will fail along the way.
(Forgive yourself when you slip up and be ready for battle the next day.)
This approach is allowing me to push along and move forward. It turns out Sir Ick-a-lot is not my friend. But I don’t have to make him my enemy either.
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