Eat That Frog

Most of us think of frogs as little, sticky, jumpy amphibious creatures that we see a lot of in the summer rain or perhaps begin to hear whistling at dusk in the early spring; regardless, an exciting appetizer it is not!  In terms of time management, I think of the frog as that one thing I simply don’t want to do – like dealing with a potentially confrontational situation, or having a difficult discussion with my kids, or making a critical sales call, or preparing for a major proposal or presentation – whatever I know I need to do, but don’t want to do, especially right now!   Brian Tracy’s book, Eat That Frog suggests we identify our frogs in advance, and “eat” them first in our day.  Otherwise, we mentally carry the frog throughout our day – thereby tainting all the things we actually do.  If you were like me as a kid, you did not particularly enjoy your vegetables.  You may have been that one, last kid sitting at the dinner table, forever pushing around the peas or lima beans.  Unfortunately for me, and likely my parents as well, I was not good at hiding my veggies under the placemat or in the dog’s mouth, so dinner tended to drag on far too long.  The problem was not that I had to eat the veggies, it was that I waited – making the veggies seem worse and the good stuff less appetizing (knowing the veggies needed my attention sooner or later).  I am still not a big veggie fan now, but I’ll hit ‘em first, so the other part of dinner is more enjoyable.  What are your frogs? What have you been putting off?  What are you not doing enough of?  Identify your frogs and make a decision to eat them first. You will not be disappointed and may even find that the frog isn’t so unappetizing after all!