Eat the frog.

“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

I ran into this article some time ago, and it really stuck with me. It's common sense, really, if you have a tough thing to do: better do it as soon as you can. If you have multiple tough things to do, start with the toughest one.

Now, we all have frogs in our daily life. That meeting you should have cancelled right away, while you decided it could wait, but oh, the meeting's tomorrow? Frog. The need to call the doctor about that little odd speck you found on your arm? Frog. That acquaintance that keeps inviting you for dinner that you *really* need to tell that you're not actually, well... friends? Big frog.

Anyway, I bet you can name a few frogs of your own without too much trouble, some bigger than others. And sometimes we actually succeed in stifling the ribbits and croaks, albeit temporary. More often than not they come back to haunt us, one way or the other, and patiently wait for us to deal with them while they grow. And oh boy, do they grow...

There actually has been a time in my life where I would procrastinate my frogs away and explain their disappearance by spinning some ludicrous tales to whomever had provided me with said frog. but then again, I was a teenager and that behaviour is, well, not completely unexpected or at least, not a total shocker.

But as time passed by, I grew up, well, kind of grew up, somewhat. And most important: I had learned that procrastination makes big frogs and spinning tales, well... Spinning tales won't make your frog disappear, nor will it taste better. Procrastination = frog food.

Don't feed the frog. Eat the frog.

Another interesting thing I stumbled upon was a video of Tim Pychyl about procrastination. In this video Tim explains the mechanisms behind procrastination in what I think is an interesting and comprehensible way. To do it justice, I postponed watching the video a few times before completely viewing it of course.

The fun part: it ties in perfectly with the whole eating the frog thing. Nobody forces you to eat a frog in the literal sense, though frogs may be stowed upon you at work or even in your private life, but 'eat the frog' makes a lot more sense to me than 'don't do today what you can do tomorrow', or was it the other way around?

In all, the important thing is not to feed the frog, it'll just get bigger. Just get it over with, eat it first thing in the morning, you'll have the rest of the day to feel better about it, and yourself. Live to fight another day, live to eat another frog.

Oh, and there's this: I (re)discovered during diner that 6 year old boys are pretty literal when it comes to their train of thought, and defining a piece of Broccoli as a 'frog' won't actually help clearing the plate...

Anyway, don't feed the frog. Eat the frog.