Eggs, ham and toasted bread sound more pleasant than eating a slippery frog for breakfast. In life, there are sometimes situations that are as uncomfortable as eating a frog.
In those moments when you have to get shit done but, for no evident reason, you can’t avoid procrastinating, life can get uncomfortable. Think of postponement as frogs swimming in your otherwise clean and calm pool of life.
Postponing your work, priorities or tasks can spin into an unbearable web of fears that can take a high toll on your energy level. Fortunately, today you learn a brain hack to change your perception of difficult situations from problems to easy opportunities.
The inspiration for this hack stemmed from a personal insight (or fairy tale) and this quote:
If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.
Mark Twain
Finding Your Frog – A Fairy Tale
There are many techniques to get work done, as I exposed in the art of getting shit done. There are times, however, when even a disciplined achiever can fail to complete certain tasks regardless of her mindful preparation.
It can happen for reasons beyond our perception, we lack initiative to perform certain tasks. Allow me to illustrate this scenario with a personal recent story.
Last month I struggled to launch a side hustle. I was feeling oddly distracted, unconsciously postponing the launch date of this project I worked hard on for two years. I started seeing it as a frog, as something difficult when, in reality, it wasn’t.
I simply couldn’t move forward or advance. It was during the coronavirus quarantine and my focus was all over the place. It would be easy to blame COVID and the stern lockdown regulations; as I explained in the 5 mind saving hacks to survive COVID.
But, it’s more than that. I had lost momentum. I perceived anything related to this project as big, difficult, and unattainable. 🐸
Pondering Twain’s quote helped me assess the situation. I interpret it as a hardship fallacy.
When things get complicated, those are the things you have to focus on first; otherwise, you’ll keep postponing forever.
Often, what you fear the most is exactly what you have to do. This is how you find your frog. If you want to do them for pleasure or otherwise, facing controversial or stressful situations are the tasks we should do first thing in the day. The rest will come easy.
Facing the things you fear builds character, confidence, and all the more, it makes you realize that what you feared is not that scary. Long term, it’s what will provide more gains to your energy and your life. As the saying goes: easy choices, hard life; hard choices, easy life.
Make It Look Pretty – The Hack
That’s a no brainer. The hack today consists of twisting the perception of the work we have to get done. Whatever it is, we can make it look easier, so we base our strategy on spacing, timing, and composition of the work.
1. Break It Down
If you are hired to launch a satellite to space and you are not a rocket engineer you will probably freeze, not knowing how to start (I know I would freeze).
A rocket is a conglomeration of many parts instead of a single element. If you break it down to every single piece of it, you can build it. If you are told instead, we need engines, propulsion systems, telecommunications, operations center, launch pad, and so forth, you can see the picture as elements and attack them independently.
In a similar way, your frog can be decomposed to its last atom. Write it down, digest it, and make it easy by attacking single parts of the problem; ultimately, it makes any problem manageable.
2. Start Small
How much time do you need to eat the frog? After decomposing it, the odds are that you have a better idea of how much each phase or component will take to get done, associating a certain amount of estimated time to it.
As a side note, implementing the Parkinson’s Law from the day you master time management will come in handy.
Our goal today is to get started. For that, how much time do you need to work so that it looks easy to you? According to James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, making the task look easy is the kickstarter of progress, it’s a hack for the brain. Working for ten (10) minutes only definitely looks easier than fifty (50) hours.
In my experience, one day I said I would work for fifteen (15) minutes on this stale project but I ended up working five (5) hours nonstop. I just needed to get started. Mr. Twain has it right again as he put it “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
3. Write Down Your Reasons
Motivation means motive for action. If you have a strong reason to do something, it’s likely that you’ll finish regardless of the hindrances you find along the way. Why do you have to eat that frog? What are the reasons behind why you are doing it?
In this fairy tale, I forgot them. The last time I had written my reasons was two years ago when I started the side project.
One law of irony is that important things are made to be forgotten. Don’t be hard on yourself when you forget your marriage anniversary, your car keys, or what you had for breakfast this morning.
The day I decided to eat my frog, I wrote down the reasons why I was doing that project. I ended up having more than I thought initially. I used them as fuel every morning when I woke up, reminding myself why it was important to me. The frog became delicious and now I love it.
As a final piece of advice, something that helps is remembering your priorities in life. It makes a paramount difference. If one of your life priorities is to generate side income to secure your family’s future and, as in my case, you have a side hustle you’re working on which will make that a reality, then it is in line with your identity and you push harder.
From your dreams, your goals or your priorities, what do you fear the most? Normally we say, I want to become a – insert an occupation -, but we postpone getting started. We tend to disguise the fear with the excuse of timing.
This silly assessment will help you to find your frog. The next step is eating it. I wish you the best of success in this meaningful journey.
Bon appétit!