eat that frog

so strange how quickly i’ve fallen back into my old routine in just my first day back in the states: wake up, turn on my laptop, make a breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and coffee, check email and facebook, check the news, check facebook, check email, check facebook, think about going to exercise, check facebook…

i thought this was a new year dude! got to break these awful habits. speaking of which, i was reading theater bay area magazine and — as if the gods have resolved to help me with my apathy — there was an advice column about this exact topic. an actor wrote in saying how he hates new year’s resolutions because they never work out. he suffers from the worst plague of all — procrastination — and though time quickly passes, he has no accomplishments to show for it. the columnist had a few suggestions, but the one that stuck out the most is to “Eat That Frog”:

Brian Tracy wrote a little book on procrastination called Eat That Frog based on the old saying, “If the first thing you do when you wake up is eat a live frog, nothing worse can happen to you for the rest of the day.” Your “frog” is the most difficult task on your to-do list–the one you are most likely to procrastinate about. If you look at your to-do list, circle the “frog” and “eat” it first, it will give you energy and confidence to power through whatever else you need to do for the rest of the day. But if you let it sit there looking at you all day while you do a hundred other less important things, it will slowly sap your energy, and at the end of the day the thing you most needed to do still isn’t done. I have found this image helpful. When I find myself butterflying between different tasks, circling around things and not really getting anything done, I just say, “Oh come on, Velina! Eat the frog!”

my frog is writing so instead of my usual bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee, i’m going to have me a big ol’ helping of words each morning from now on. wish me luck!