Eat Your Frogs

yum.

just kidding.

I read this article on Simple Mom a while back about eating frogs--not literally. A "frog" is something you don't like to do around the house or something you always put off doing. For me some of those things include washing the pots and pans, cleaning the bathrooms or doing laundry or updating Mint (our budgeting website).

The basic idea is that if you do the worst thing on your plate first thing in the morning, the rest of the day is a cake walk. So if your least-favorite chore is the laundry, and it’s one of the items on your to-do list today, then tackle it first. That way, you can spend the rest of your day knowing you’ve done the most irritating task.

So she outlines what to do each day to get organized and determine what your frog for the day is:

1. First, outline your tasks for the day.
2. Narrow down your list to ten items.
3. Out of those ten things, pick three most important tasks.
4. Out of those three things, pick the worst one and make it your frog (do it first)
5. Out of your list of ten, pick your favorite or easiest item and make it your reward for eating your frogs.

I've been doing this for the last few months, and it's been AWeSOME. I'll be honest I don't always actually go through all the steps and write it all down, but I'll look around or think about what needs to get done, and then do it in order of what I least like to do to the things I don't mind doing. Then, when I'm all done with my tasks, I reward myself my scrapbooking on the computer or watching a TV show.

I've felt more productive because I'm getting most of my housework done in the morning before lunch (before 10 on a really good day), I have plenty of time to shower and enjoy my day with Luke. I have the whole afternoon while Luke is napping to work on hobbies because I've finished all my chores in the morning while he was happily playing or watching Sesame Street (he loves Elmo these days--"Melmo" as he calls it).

Try it. Eat a frog first thing in the morning and the rest will follow. And even if you only get that ONE thing done--it's totally worth it because it's done and you no longer have to worry about it.