The Eat the Frog Method: do the task you’re avoiding most FIRST

What is Eat the Frog?

Eat the frog is a prioritization method with one simple rule: do your most important, most-avoided, or most dreaded task, aka your "frog", first. Whether that's a document you have to write, a chore you have to do, an email you have to send, or your taxes, by working on it first thing, you start it while your focus and willpower are at their daily peak so that you have a good shot of finishing it or knocking most of it out. Once you've tackled the frog, everything else on your list should feel lighter by comparison.

The method was popularized by Brian Tracy in Eat That Frog! (2001; his own guide to the method). The phrase "Eat a frog" is usually attributed to these two Mark Twain quotes, although we cannot find a definitive source that he ever wrote these words:

"If the first thing you do each morning is eat a live frog, you can go through the day knowing the worst is behind you."

"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."

Regardless of whether Mark Twain actually said or wrote those words, the mechanism is real: avoidance is a tax you pay all day, and paying it off at 9am when you have energy is better than procrastinating on it until 3pm or 4pm when you're tired and would love to just punt it to tomorrow.

How do I pick my frog?

Your frog is the intersection of most important and most likely to be avoided. Here are some questions to ask yourself that may help you pick a frog:

• Which task would make the rest of my week easier or more relaxing if I finished it TODAY?
• Which task sounds big, scary, and unknown because I don't want to THINK about it?
• What do I keep re-writing onto TOMORROW's list?
• What makes me want to immediately start scrolling as soon as I even think about doing it?
  

You can also use our free template to help you come up with your frog and break it down, or you can join a live Flow Club session to draw inspiration from other members picking frogs. We also recommend Todoist’s guide to the method, which sizes a frog at one to four hours of work — if yours is bigger, carve off the first bite and make that the frog.

What if I have two frogs?

Brian Tracy's answer (and "Mark Twain's") would be to eat the ugliest one first. If two tasks are both important and dreaded, start with the worse one. The second frog always looks smaller after the first is gone. But for the most part, this method is most useful if you limit it to a single frog each time you do it. If you knock out your first frog and have the energy, motivation, and appetite to tackle another though, that's great!

Pro tips for Eating the Frog

1. Name your frog ahead of time. Write down your frog for tomorrow the night before (especially easy if you end up carrying it over — at least that's one step done!).
2. Set tomorrow-you up for success. After naming your frog, open the tab(s) for it and close other tabs, and get out the tools or resources you need.
3. Start on the frog before anything else. Not email. Not Slack. Not Reddit. The frog.
4. Commit to working on it for a length of time rather than thinking you HAVE to FINISH. This works especially well the more daunting and ugly the frog is. Just commit to working on it for a single pomodoro or 60 minutes, and then re-assess.
5. Break it down, break it up, and eat it one leg at a time. You might not know ahead of time how ugly or big the task is, which is usually true for the tasks we avoid. Sometimes, the task is emotionally difficult, but actually pretty straightforward. Other times, if you can just knock out one chunk of it, the momentum will help you eat the rest of it.

What if I’m not a morning person?

The rule doesn't have to be strictly first thing in the morning, especially since the Mark Twain quote is of dubious origin anyway. If you can reliably dedicate a block of time when you will have peak focus and energy, that can be your frog eating time. In fact, if you know that you focus best at 2pm or 9pm, you can book a Flow Club session at that time to guard it for your frog. The key is to tackle it right away at the designated time, rather than letting smaller tasks, especially open-ended ones, eat up your energy while you avoid the dreaded task.

When does Eat the Frog fail? How do I avoid failing?

Some of the common failure modes:

1. When everything is labeled a frog. This is especially tough if you struggle with prioritization. You can use other systems like a 1-3-5 list to help identify your frog.
2. When the frog is so large it triggers task paralysis. Try to break it down into smaller steps, sometimes until the first step is almost so trivial that it's silly. You're using a technique called "Eat the Frog", so we think it's okay to be a bit silly.
3. When you rely on willpower alone to start. Even if you can break your frog down, getting started can still be hard. This is where external accountability or body doubling can help. If you join a Flow Club session, for example, you are declaring both privately and publicly that "this hour is for my frog." Working alongside other people also tackling tasks that they would prefer to avoid can help you generate some momentum for getting started.

Who does Eat the Frog work best for?

Even though you don't necessarily need to tackle your frog first thing in the morning, being a morning person probably helps. Brian Tracy mentions that eating the frog first thing every day can help you build up the discipline and habit around it, so if you tend to respond well to habits and routines, Eat the Frog is likely a good fit for you. The type of work you have to do on a given day also matters. It certainly helps if your work for the day looks more like a small number of big tasks with just a few candidates for your frog than a long list of small items to check off. It probably does not work as well if you tend to struggle to get started at all rather than getting started on smaller items. You also can't eat your frog if you can't figure out what it is even after spending time going through your list and using the tips above, and often struggle with identifying what's urgent or important.

So does Eat the Frog work for ADHD?

The last two caveats above are certainly common struggles for ADHD brains. We looked at many Reddit threads where people with ADHD tried Eat the Frog and anecdotally, many struggled with it. In ADDitude’s poll of 389 readers, only 7% eat the frog first thing in the morning, and 68% adapt instead (ADDitude).

ADHD brains might struggle with Eat the Frog because the barrier is usually activation, so “hardest thing first” can trigger paralysis instead of momentum (Jesse J. Anderson). For those who struggle with executive dysfunction, choosing a frog can be both overwhelming and difficult when everything feels equally urgent.

It does work for some, though, and many ADHDers use the same trick: shrink or break down the frog until the first step is almost silly, then try to start it at your real energy peak instead of 8am if you are not a morning person. Another helpful tip is to write down a reward for eating the frog if completing the task doesn't necessarily provide a dopamine response. Most of all, don't rely on willpower to get started. Instead, once you've shrunk the frog and picked a time to get started, name it out loud and find ways to create accountability and rewards. A Flow Club session can help with that: you write down your frog and book a time that you're committing to work on it. When you join, the running clock and other members working on their own frogs and tasks help turn a private intention into an appointment that includes a celebration for showing up and dedicating the time (Lotus Bloom Psychology).

Try it now! Check out the free Eat the Frog template: label your frog, come up with a way to break down the task, and write down a reward for eating your frog.

Related methods: the 1-3-5 List, the Ivy Lee Method, Beat Task Paralysis.