My evening ritual, as a child, started by pushing mushy vegetables to the side of my plate. Thinking that if I procrastinated long enough mom would say, “Oh honey, don’t worry, you don’t have to eat your vegetables today”.

But this never happened. My mom was a stickler for eating ALL the food on your plate.

If I’d known about Mark Twain’s advice about procrastination, I’d just gotten it over with quickly. And enjoyed the rest of my meal.

“Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

–Mark Twain 

What is “Eat a live frog”?

Twain was famous for his use of expressive language and poignant satire. So, let’s break it down.

Eat a live frog: The live frog represents the worst task of the day. It represents the big, bad or ugly parts of our daily to-do lists. It’s the unpleasant things in life we’ve been putting off. Like cleaning your bathroom, working on taxes, or apologizing to someone you’ve wronged.

First thing in the morning: This means making our least favorite to-do list activity a part of our post-wakeup routine. Maybe you could work on your taxes while having morning coffee. Clean the bathroom and then take a shower. Or call your friend and apologize before you make breakfast.

Nothing worse will happen to you. Doing the dreaded and difficult tasks right away helps us build momentum, build a sense of accomplishment and stop us from wasting precious mental energy during the rest of the day. Besides everything else is a breeze compared to eating a live frog.

The rest of the day: We are linear beings bound to the gravity of time that ticks off second by second, day by day. Procrastinating only wastes time and productivity. Our minds aren’t easily fooled by procrastination. We know what must be done and our brain will bring it up over and over again. Yet, we can only push these thoughts back for so long. Eventually, we’ll start to dwell on them. Over time our emotions will get involved. Then, as procrastination continues, we’ll begin to struggle with feelings of worry, frustration and the regret of ‘not taking care of business’. And it’s hard to focus on the task at hand -i.e. the rest of the day – when this happens.

5 steps to Eat a Live Frog Every Morning:

1. List all the live frogs that are pressing on your mind right now.

2. Keep a diary the first few weeks to help you think through the process.

3. Try planning the night before: There may be some preliminary steps to do beforehand.

4. Illicit help from those involved: People in your house may not appreciate you cleaning your bathroom at 5 am.

5. Break the frogs up: Not every frog can be done first thing every morning, but you have to start somewhere.

Like they say – “why put off until tomorrow what you can do right after you wake up!”