jmiskill
January 14, 2023 Eating Frogs is a phrase (apparently a very uncommon one) that simply means-
If you have necessary things you need to get done. Do them now. Eat The Frog and get it over with.
My mom was the one who taught me this phrase. It was when I was a teenager and started to have more responsibilities and things that I needed to get done and ask for when she taught it to me. Since then, it has become a sort of a life motto and internal rule that I follow without hesitation.
However, during college, frog eating has become significantly more difficult. The frogs are more complicated, they are bigger, some are unnecessary. Things are just different. I’m going to write about frogs today in hopes of having a good conversation with myself about my frogs.
Why Am I Writing About Eating Frogs I had the idea to write about eating frogs on Monday when I sat down in the morning and wrote everything that I needed to get done that day. It was a giant list. On the list I had exactly this:
routine Philanthropy Plans Set Up New Phone Clean Room Call PT Call Dominion Text James Fly fishing plan Financial Plan email UVa Career about internship money Email Deloitte Address and send letters Plan next semester routine Reach out to professors Chores Try on clothes Next article idea generation Darden Make career center appointment Handshake Response Update UVa Info I wanted to check off all of these things by the end of the day. At the end of that particular Monday, I had checked off 15 of the 21 things. Not so bad. Not perfect.
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All of these items in my TODO part of my notebook are Frogs. Things we must conquer and “eat”. They are things that have to be done, require time, and are usually deemed unenjoyable.
The reason I am writing about this today is because I love Eating Frogs. If I can look back over a day at a list of things that I wanted to get done, and see a majority of checkmarks, that’s a good day. Furthermore, in a day and age where it is consistently more and more difficult to measure progress and feel accomplished, eating frogs provides a gateway to growth.
What Kind of Frogs Have I Eaten in the Past There are a bunch of different kinds of frogs that exist out there. I have been able to classify frogs into one of two categories, each with a plethora of subcategories that I don’t have the time to write about individually. The two categories are “NEED” and “WANT”.
Before categorizing the previous example into the two categories, it is necessary to quickly explain my thoughts behind “NEED” and “WANT”. The “NEED” category are items that I absolutely have to take care of, for legal, health, or general “I have to take care of this in order to be a human being”. In the “WANT” category falls things that I have deemed are important to me that I want to do and take care of.
Monday’s Categorization:
NEED BOTH WANT Set Up New Phone Routine Fly Fishing Plan Clean Room Philanthropy reach out to professors Call PT plan next semester routine Next article idea generation Call Dominion Darden Text James Financial Plan Email UVA about internship money Email Deloitte Address and send letters Chores Try on clothes Make career center appointment Handshake response Update UVA Info I tricked you. There are three categories.
As you can see, there were more things in the “NEED” category than the “WANT” category. However, you will find it interesting that there are a bunch of things that fall into the “BOTH” category.
Further, many of the things that fall into the “NEED” category are actually enjoyable to do. Cleaning my room, setting up the phone, and doing chores are three frogs I genuinely enjoyed eating (Have you gotten tired of me saying “eating frogs” yet?).
Not every single day looks like this for me. On the day of writing this article, I have only 6 frogs to eat. ( 😦 ). The point of this is that every day, each of the frogs adds up. Over time, I can count how many frogs I have eaten, and said that they were good for me in the long run. They helped me accomplish goals and set my mind straight.
One of the biggest challenges I have been focused on solving and thinking about as of late has been “make sense of the world around you”. It is a super broad and open-ended challenge. Finding a frog, eating it, and repeating is a fantastic system of achieving this. It takes a huge problem and condenses it down into it’s constituent parts. (this is a phenomenon I have been thinking about a lot and would like to explore more).
Over the course of this week, I have identified 48 frogs and eaten 26. I know that’s a pretty poor ratio, but it has pushed me along more than not doing this (I am starting to get a bad taste in my mouth from saying “eating frogs” so many times).
Resources about Eating Frogs I personally think some of these resources are a little gross. Mainly because they are “productivity methods” and “time management” which I think can be really toxic and unhelpful. However, they are interesting to read if you would like to look through them.
Everything I have written up to this point has bee entirely from personal experience and my own thoughts.
Eat That Frog & Start Accomplishing Your Goals | Brian Tracy Frog rule: the key to productivity is tackling a tough task early in the day What Is Eat the Frog? A Dead Simple System for Productivity Minimalists Some Thoughts I Have About These Resources: The first two articles talk about eating frogs as a work-specific thing. While this is true and useful, I use it for work, school, and personal life. The articles talk about eating the biggest frog first. I think this is somewhat true. Life doesn’t always let me eat the biggest one first, though. You can have a ton of frogs each day. That’s totally okay. It’s okay to have days where you feel burnt and need to only eat a few frogs. I’m not always in the mood to eat frogs. My Frog-Eating Strategy I physically (not using the computer) write everything down. I eat the biggest frog I can, first. I am trying to create a routine of frogs I want and need to eat every day. I physically cross things off my list. I set different kinds of frogs. I am trying to take time to reflect at the end of the day and the end of the week. I think forward progress is great and that eating frogs is a great way to try to cultivate meaning from a wildly unstructured life- but I want to analyze everything, too. Not only to see what I could do better, but also just to look back upon things. Be present in the work. Final Thoughts There is a lot more to be said here. This is a sort of an ongoing conversation and process that I am having with myself. A lot of what was said here will mesh with one of the next articles I release about flow.
Further- this post has been relatively surface level about how I go about these things. Eating frogs has been on my mind, but has lead to a bunch more thoughts about life and the pursuit of happiness (which is another interesting thought).
I can see this blog page becoming a conversation with myself that other people can read and laugh at or take things from. If you want to talk about it- reach out to me! These posts are really great ways for me to be reflective and develop insight into my own life- which often becomes crazy.
Also there are approximately 5 people who read this now. Kind of a neat community. I appreciate y’all reading when you can. This is much more for myself than for anyone else- but that was my goal with this. This will be a collection of my thoughts, ideas, experiences, etc. I am so excited to be doing this. Feel free to share as you want- I do not mind who reads it.
PSA I love frogs and have never actually eaten a real one.
Thanks Mom.
Jackson Miskill