Mark Twain is often quoted as saying, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” This ties in nicely with what organizational psychologist Adam Grant posted recently on LinkedIn.
For years I gave a talk called “Productivity: The Secret Sauce for Success.” Sometimes I adjusted the title slightly for the audience, but most of the content was the same. In one section of the talk I walked audience members through four ways to prioritize their to-do list.
I am not the type of person who can always do the most important thing first. Yes, the logical way to power through your to-do list is to start with a high-impact activity, or the “fast path to the cash,” as I often refer to it. In my talk, I called this way of prioritizing your to-do list “Cha-ching!”
The second way to approach your to-do list I called “Gulp!” This was a reference to eating that frog first. In certain situations it is the right thing to do first because if you don’t it will be hanging over you, hampering your forward progress. Kind of like driving with the emergency brake on.
The third way to approach your to-do list is “Check!” This works well if you have a bunch of things on your list that won’t take a lot of time. You can build up enthusiasm and momentum as you get the dopamine hits from checking things off your list. (Does anybody else write in things you did that weren’t on the original list so you can have the sense of accomplishment of checking them off?)
The last way to approach your to-do list (and the one that works wonders for me) is “Woo-hoo!” What task or project on your list gets you excited? You might want to start there. This works especially well for creatives. Often, I start with writing a post for this blog. After that, I am fired up and ready to tackle other things on my to-do list.
Below is the section where I specifically talk about the four ways to prioritize your to-do list. I think you might find it helpful if you have trouble getting started.
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
