Many years ago, when I was still working as a Librarian, someone had pasted a funny bookmark on their locker. It showed a photo of a frog and said: “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse can happen to you all day.” I loved that bookmark! I thought about it a lot. I bought a treadmill and told the guy I planned to use it first thing in the morning. “After all,” I said, “Exercise is like eating a frog, do it first thing in the morning and nothing worse can happen to you all day. “ I have been thinking about that saying a lot lately. I looked it up on the ‘Net and found that a lot of other people have realized, like me, that this quote (originally said by Mark Twain) is about prioritizing.
My birthday has just passed and I have always felt—and seen in the cards as I read people—that birthdays seem to be beginning of a new cycle of our lives. Even if it isn’t a big “zero” year, it is still a moment of new beginning. It is a better time to make new resolutions instead of January 1st. So I have been thinking about eating frogs.
The Frog is the most important task you do that day.
You do it first—no matter how unpleasant–and get it out of the way. Right now I am trying to e-mail old clients and ask for reviews. Not my favorite thing to do but I am breaking it down: do 5 a day, I tell myself, and then STOP. I am eating that frog: doing it first thing in the morning. I remind myself that once that is done, nothing worse can happen to me all day.
That was not my ONLY birthday resolution. I am getting up and eating those frogs too. I have resolved to post to my Facebook page more and tweet more and blog more—something my webmaster has been on my case for a YEAR or more to do! I am doing Morning Pages—a blog entry in itself. And the frog is not going down happy but it IS going down.
So tell me: what are YOUR Frogs? What do YOU have to do (when you can or when you have time) but can’t get around to?