And my problem?
I can’t decide which one to eat first.
The mud room organization?
Unpacking the boxes in the corner of the living room?
The basic laundry pile?
Where to begin?
What in the World is Eating Your Frog?
When I began the day yesterday by saying to my kids, “Well, I’m off to go eat my frog!” you should have seen the look on my 6-year-old’s face! Oy! Priceless.
I explained: “Eating Your Frog just means doing the hardest thing on your to-do list first. If you get the least favorite task out of the way, the rest of your day runs smoother.”
For me, yesterday, I decided that starting laundry was important to do right away, and organizing the mud room (it’s really a mud “area” but why split semantic hairs?) was something that would make me feel good once accomplished. Besides that, we could walk through the area.
I got the laundry started, and then Jonathan woke up. Then breakfast needed to be served. Then I had to clean up the table/kitchen after breakfast. Then I had to complete my online frog: writing yesterday’s back to basics Monday Mission. That, at least, I accomplished, although it took a couple tries.
I was excited to have this goal in mind for my work at the computer, because although I’ve always been a list person and organized in one sense, I’m also notorious for backwards prioritization and not sticking to the list very well.
Where Did All These Frogs Come From?
Before I get too much further and step into the bloga-confessional, let me explain the impetus behind all this frogging.
I’m reading Tsh Oxenreider’s eBook One Bite at a Time, which includes 52 steps to simplifying your life. Gals (and guys? Maybe?) are chatting about it on the KS Facebook page, where I’ll remind of the week’s goal each Monday and share my progress during the week and at least on Fridays.
Not on Facebook? You can still view everything going on just by going here – I have a new “welcome page”, but you can still see the updates by clicking “Wall” on the far left. Just pop in on Monday and Friday to keep up on the conversation!
If you’re interested in this superb book by the creator of Simple Mom, be sure to grab your copy for only $4 HERE with the coupon code HAPPYNEWYEAR.
So far, my simplifying has merely overrun my house with frogs. But I’m sure it will be a good thing in the long run!
How did I Do?
Well, I’m sad to announce that when I asked my husband what he thought my “frog” should be for today, he gestured toward the mess in the mud area and said, “Uh, that would be good, and how about unpacking one box?”
Good goals.
In my own defense, the mud area frog didn’t get consumed yesterday because the contents of my entire van were deposited there, compounding the situation. I spent about 5 minutes clearing the shoe clutter in the morning like I was supposed to and set my timer for 10 minutes in the late afternoon and did what I could. Which brings us to…
What About Failure?
Let’s not think too much about failure, per se, but if at the midpoint of your day, you have some uneaten frogs sitting around, be sure to remind yourself that when one does not eat one’s main course, one cannot have dessert.
(In other words, Eat the Frog before you play.)
If by some mishap you have uneaten bits of frog lying around your house at the end of the day, I recommend a three-pronged attack:
- Evaluate why the frog didn’t get eaten (troubleshoot for the next time).
- Count the important things you surely did instead: don’t forget that you probably feed your family three meals a day, most likely played with your kids (if you have kids) at least a few minutes, and perhaps even cleaned up something or helped with homework.In my case, I gave my son a haircut, went shopping with my mother who was visiting from 5 hours away, wrote morning chore lists for the kids, made dinner, packed a lunch, stored crispy sunflower seeds, nursed a baby…
- Put the frog in the refrigerator for tomorrow, and be sure to eat it first.
You might also take a page from Flylady‘s book and set a timer for 15 minutes. My mom, observing the disarray in my life and my lack of schedule since moving, living in a temporary situation, and having a baby, actually got me a timer for Christmas. I asked her if it came with a daily accountability phone call. 
The idea from Flylady is that “you can do anything for 15 minutes.” Tsh might add, “Even eating a frog.”
So you set your timer for 15 minutes and embark on your task. Even if you’re not finished when it beeps, you do something else, maybe playing with your kids (set a timer for that, too), maybe a regular maintenance task, maybe sitting down with a cup of tea and a book (or blog). The timer helps you to focus entirely on the task at hand and work efficiently, knowing that you’ll only be doing it for 15 minutes.
Choosing the Frog
If I leave you with one piece of advice about the whole frogetarian diet we’re embarking upon, it’s this:
Choose your Frog before you go to bed
You will be able to truly hit the ground running if you know your first task of the day. I also recommend NOT considering your frog while you’re trying to go to sleep, because you might experience either (1) nightmares about your to-do list, (2) nightmares about frogs all over your house, or (3) falling asleep before you decide on your frog. Which brings me back to the…
Frogs All Over My House!
I can’t believe how many tasks pop into my head each time I consider what one frog I’m going to tackle for a day. I think I need to just get over that “choice paralysis” and pick one and make sure I do it first.
For some on Facebook, exercise was their nemesis. For others, a certain cleaning task. For many, we should prioritize prayer first, but I have to admit that’s not my frog. I’ve never been good at praying in the morning, because I fall back asleep! God and I will have to work out another time…
I struggle with wondering whether I should choose a BIG frog or a little frog. My big frog might be organizing all the kids’ clothing in the house, which is in wild disarray after being separated from most of our worldly possessions for 5 months while children grew out of things and changed seasons and I didn’t have a system for where to put them. I don’t want to make that my frog because I fear failure!
A little frog would be unpacking one box, but then I might not feel accomplished enough and would put 1000 other things on my to-do list anyway. You see, this is why I need Tsh’s book (One Bite at a Time)!
I also have frogs coming out of my ears when I sit down at the computer, and I let them win yesterday.
I mentioned the bloga-confessional, so here goes:
I am a terrible procrastinator.
This is my habit when I sit down to work online: I typically have a to-do list of important tasks to accomplish, always far more than I can get done in a sitting. I prioritize them with little numbers. “Write tomorrow’s post” is on the list 95% of the time, and it usually should have a high ranking because clearly, that is “due” the next morning.
Watch this backward thinking: do I begin with number one? Rarely.
I get sucked into checking social media like Facebook and Twitter. I see if anything interesting has happened on the blog stats that day. I peek into my email hoping something exciting will come through that can justify me being distracted from my numbered list.
I might even read a few articles or blog posts online that catch my eye, thinking I “deserve” a moment to read after a long day being a mom.
When I finally get down to work, it feels almost like an addiction that I leave my post, usually the one thing that has a “deadline”, until last.
Why so backward? I think that if I end up going to bed without writing my post, I’ll be forced to complete that in the morning, whereas if I have other nonessentials to work on, I won’t (1) be motivated to get up early or (2) be able to justify plunking the 3-year-old in front of the television while I work.
Because of course, if I don’t post on a given day according to my personal editorial calendar, the world will end. Readers will flock away, I’ll get behind, and thoughts that must be shared will be lost forever.
Uh huh. Right.
So on day one of “Eat Your Frog” I thought, “Yes! I’m finally going to sit down and write this post first thing after dinner (Monday is my “work night”). Then I’ll get that email to cloth diaper companies asking for review samples written – the one I’ve been saying was top priority for about a month. This is going to be great!”
Guess what I’m doing right now?
Sitting at 10:30 a.m., writing my post, with the 3-year-old enjoying her 30 minutes of TV and the baby napping. The mud room looks like it did last night (but I did play house for 20 minutes already in a bedroom with pink carpet AND put away the clean dishes, so that was important!).
Sigh.
I need to get better at Eating My Frog.
Feel free to tweet at me at any time to ask if I’ve done it. That might help this poor hopeless procrastinator get her game on for the New Year!
Kids and Frogs
Yesterday on Facebook, a KS reader asked a wise question about kids, and I wanted to address the “life of a mom interrupted” concept for a minute.
Your kids might be the reason you have uneaten frog portions lying around your house. I’d certainly like to blame mine, even though it’s often my fault!
First, sometimes kids interrupt your work. See that section about failure above and move on. It’s going to happen.
Second, kids can eat their frogs, too. Yesterday before we played or ate breakfast, I made my kids sweep the floor. Somehow it was more palatable when it was “eating a frog” rather than “doing a chore.” Go figure.
They also received a timer for Christmas from my mother, who clearly knew we needed reform. !! Setting their own timer for work or play time in incredibly motivating. I like that they understand when I say, “I’m setting my timer for 15 minutes to do some work, and when it beeps, we will set it for 15 minutes to play.” Both the work and the play are better because expectations are clear.
I’m excited about getting the concept of “work before play” ingrained into their beings so they can have good habits for life, and not backward thinking like their poor mother! I’m also plotting to apply this to conversations about food. Instead of a simple “yes” or “no” to the question of “May I have a dessert?” I’m going to make dinnertime a more teachable moment and discuss “growing foods” vs. “fun foods” and why we eat certain things before the fun foods. (Terms borrowed from Dr. Sears.) My older child had that training when he was young, but I think the 3-year-old has missed out in the craziness of our last year.
What are YOUR Stumbling Blocks?
Now that you know much more than you need to about the simultaneous messes inside my head and around my frog-covered house, I’m curious to hear what prevents you from cleaning your plate when your Daily Frog is served.
What makes “Eating Your Frog” so difficult? What makes it worth it? And what’s your frog, anyway?
UPDATE: This is funny – I just saw a tweet that the book Eat That Frog is 99 cents today only for Kindle! I wish I had a Kindle…
Note: We’ll be talking about the rest of Tsh’s book, one week at a time, for the remainder of 2012. I won’t be posting full out on the blog after this unless something connects back into what we’re working on at KS anyway, but I just had to gab about this frog thing. Maybe it will help keep me accountable.
Disclosure: I do earn affiliate commission from sales of One Bite, but I really, really, needed to go through it and knew I wouldn’t without you guys. And now you know it, too, with all my weaknesses revealed! See my full disclosure statement here.
My frog is my whole house… I have three children under the age of 5 – a four year old who is special needs, a three year old and a 6 month old. Talk about interruptions. We moved into our fixer upper when I was nine months pregnant with my second and we still have unpacked boxes in the garage and baseboards to install in all but one room of the house. Even when I eat my frogs, which is not often enough, by the end of the day I have another 12 hopping up my legs. Such is life – my motto – it is okay that my house looks like we live in it!
What a great post! Thanks for sharing! I too struggle with juggling my kids, job, chores….the ‘frog theory’ certainly makes sense! I will give it a try! 🙂
When we moved and I had too many “frogs”, I put them all down on scraps of paper, folded them up and put them in a jar. I also added a few fun treats just to mix it up! Then I set the timer for 15 min. and just picked out of the jar. It made it easier for me if I didn’t have to decide.
Thank you for the great tip, Katie. Recently I rewrote my Mother’s Rule (more on that in a minute) and had bathrooms as my first cleaning task of the day. Being mom to five boys makes that a definite “frog!” Recently I was questioning the sanity of scrubbing sinks & toilets at 7am, and then I received your post. Shucks! Looks like that task is not being shuffled. 🙂
A book that has made a HUGE impact on my vocation as a Catholic wife and mother is Holly Pierlot’s A Mother’s Rule of Life. In a nutshell, she took the monastic rule followed by Blessed Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity and applied it to marriage and motherhood. She covers organization of every aspect of our vocation from the spiritual to the practical. The subtitle of the book is “How to bring order to your home and peace to your soul.” Applying Holly’s book to my own life revolutionized my vocation as a wife and mother.
As a mom to so many boys, loved, loved, loved the picture of yours with the frog!
Michelle,
I’ve read that book! It’s been a while, but I knew exactly what you meant by “Mother’s Rule.” Awesome. 🙂 Katie
I just found out that you don’t need a Kindle to read Kindle books. You can download Kindle for Mac (or PC, I assume, but don’t know) for free on Amazon. I LOVE it!
Not to mention that I love this post. Thanks for encouraging to eat some frogs this morning… now, I have a date with dirty dishes… 🙂
I found that eating my frog (cleaning the dining room table) brought not only some calm around eating, but also provided me space to fold laundry (frog #2!)
Hmmmm… Where is that timer? It must be under this clutter somewhere…..
I just finished reading Eat That Frog – it’s a great book!!
you know, if you’ve done 15 minutes (trying to eat your “frog”) Flylady says you can have 15 minutes of “treat”. don’t punish yourself for taking on something that was possibly to large for you or for that particular time or day, celebrate what you did do.
BTW, Katie — the picture of your shirtless, dirty boy holding a frog triumphantly is priceless. Thanks for sharing such a wonderful moment.
One of my absolute favorite pictures from that year! We even put it on our Christmas cards last year, I believe. 😉
Brava, Healther! My washer likes to lose its computer mind when I set the delay feature and I wake up to another thing to do. 🙁 Thanks for the reminder to use a crockpot to make breakfast for me. I bet that you could make a killer egg dish, too, or even set two containers in(to my large crock) and have two things cooking at once…hmmm
We are finally settled after a few years that have been beyond crazy, involving multiple cross-country moves, not necessarily with our stuff. (We are reunited with all our stuff that we didn’t leave behind somewhere or sell or give away, too!). In our wanderings, there were a couple of times when I had no crockpot, a situation not to be borne. A crockpot is a godsend, if you are trying to live in a motel, while you find housing! Anywho, I now have 3 crockpots, in 3 different sizes, plus an itty bitty one meant to use for hot dips that is great for making herb-infused oils for body creams and ointments and such. I bought the biggest one new, the other two are from thrift stores. I have actually been known to use all 3 at once. I was originally going to get rid of at least one, but I’ve changed my mind.
I have’t read the book. I am more than a little obsessive about organizing, so I didn’t fee the need. How I plan things is to do what I need to be able to do daily work daily. When I moved, I did the kitchen, then bathrooms, then linens. Then I moved clockwise from the front door. This way, I could get the real work done, and as long as things looked good from the front door, I looked like I was more in control than I was. THAT made me feel better about it.
My rule for getting things done right now is simply to not sit if I am not holding the baby (mine is about a week older than yours). Also, I love to make the machines work while I sleep at night. Just before bed, I start a load of laundry, and get the dishwasher ready to work, with it’s delay timer set (I used to have a clothes washer with a delay timer, so I used to do the opposite). I often will also set up oatmeal or some such in the crockpot for breakfast. All of those jobs can be set up in less than 15 minutes. and I wake up in the morning feeling like I’ve already gotten a lot accomplished!
We’re not exactly following this, but we’re working on many similar things. I’ve organized the kids’ playroom and I’ve begun making them clean up before nap and bed each day, and I try to make sure they don’t have more than one ‘set’ of toys each at any given time (the kitchen, the trains, the cars, the play-doh…ugh, play-doh).
I did all my laundry early in the day, except for the sets of sheets I washed but haven’t yet folded, but that’s so easy. The rest was done early in the day, before I even came down for breakfast (my kids were in the kitchen, eating a small amount of homemade ice cream as a pre-breakfast snack during this time…). I still checked in with the laptop fairly often but I didn’t STAY on it much. This is an improvement for me!
It’s great that people are motivated to make real, small changes this year! (I’m blogging about all my own goals tomorrow!)
You made me laugh out loud – a good friend used to say “want to have a great day? eat a live toad first thing in the morning and your day is sure to improve from there….”
It was great to be reminded of her. 🙂
-Barb
Thanks for the update — I don’t have a Kindle, but I have a Kindle reader on several devices, including my computer, which I just downloaded it to for 99c on Amazon! What a deal. 🙂
I’m a list maker… so tasks often get done. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) my “Frogs” tend to be stupid, simple things like — clean the toilet or clean the fish tank. What really helps me is to pick one “Frog” for each specific time frame — like during the morning or at nap time or before I go to bed…then I can finish that one task and feel ok about leaving the rest for another time!
I haven’t heard of the frog analogy before – love it.
I usually relate to the waffles & spaghetti analogy coined by Bill and Pam Farrel in their book Men are Like Waffles Women are Like Spaghetti.
They explain men have their waffle compartments of life. They go to work in one waffle square, leave work and make the commute home in another square, come home and address tasks at home square by square.
God designed us, however, to function in a more spaghetti bowl style. We follow the one noodle around the bowl (lets say straighten the mud room) until another noodle crosses our paths (baby wakes up) until another noodle crosses the baby noodle (phone rings). Once that noodle ends (hang up the phone), we try to figure out which noodle to follow around the bowl next (laundry) until the baby noodle crosses the path again…
We have all these noodles (children, dishes, laundry, etc.) which crisscross each other all day long! Unfortunately, my day usually ends with the same mixed up mess of spaghetti noodles in my bowl (though I do LOVE some of those noodles – husband & children!).
aw, the old frog concept! i used to use that when i was running a successful direct sales business and it really did help in making sure i got done the things that really needed to be done. i never thought about applying it to my home life now that i am not doing a consuming business but mostly a mom who teaches some piano lessons and helps her husband in ministry. hmmm. i will have to start thinking that way. i find my most productive time usually somewhere in the mid afternoon. my encouragement to people just starting to use the frog method is that it is usually referring to a task, not a huge insurmountable project. if you do have a huge project, break it up into bite size tasks so you can find success and keep going.
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I should say that yesterday my frog was to clean out the bathroom cupboard but I started putting away laundry in the bedroom and before you know it I was pulling out the vacuum and cleaning off the nightstands and purging a few books and tucking away some summer clothing…so I didn’t want to argue with myself about which frog to dissect because I was actually conquering a frog.
I need to do the mind mapping activity tonight to figure out my frog. I also feel pulled in too many directions. I did, however, manage my second day of 5 things for myself…but then blew my lid at my son so it feels like I failed. Will try again . Those frogs elude me…they are all little frogs hopping all over the place and need to be mapped and pinned down, I think.
I am right there with you Katie. I am eating my frog(s) too. I too have the problem of indecision. I am really just trying to accomplish ANY task right now first thing in the morning. I usually am a slow starter in the morning, and as a result, never really get going at all. So I am trying to do A task first off, and then, guess what, I am off and running. Hoping to make a change for good this time!
You inspired me to eat MY frog…which then had a domino effect that resulted in several items getting crossed off my (mental) list. Thanks!
You can do it!!! 🙂 ~Elizabeth
I absoloutly LOVE the timer idea! We WILL be trying that here. I need it and so do my kids 😉
I really like this post and it’s really applicable to the productivity problems I have. Thanks!
Also, I hesitate to say this, but I have to: I think you need to read up on how to use “oy”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oy_vey
Lucy,
Too funny. I do say “oy vey” sometimes; I wonder if it’s correctly done? Usually it’s like “golly gee, that’s terrible,” so maybe it fits. 🙂 Katie
Nice concept. Chores are never-ending so “doing a chore” seems insignificant in the grand scheme of chores that need to be done, but if you only have to eat one frog a day… it just seems more manageable.
Such a great post. I always love how open and transparent you are when you write. It makes me be more honest with myself. Thank you. Jessica
I feel ya! My child got a countdown timer that shows red over the time remaining, so she has a visual of how much time she has for something, for Christmas. I think I’ll have to steal it for laptop time! I end up reading the really important, complicated sciency stuff at midnight – NOT the best way to receive and retain information!
We use alternative terms for growing/fun foods – growing/not growing (sometimes)/fake foods. I wanted to avoid associating food with fun/reward, and also give the message that some stuff LOOKS like food, but actually hurts our bodies rather than making them grow up or even out. Of course, that may get me into some social trouble at some stage – anyone have other terms they use?
I’m following along with the 52 Projects….bought it a few months ago actually…you are just helping to make it fun/accountable. The whole frogs thing is a hard one for me. I work full-time as well as being a mom and having a house to keep…also recently moved and have lots of unpacking to do. And the whole frog is hard for me to wrap my head around. I don’t want to overwhelm myself….I want a do-able frog…yet that seems counter to what the frog is. And I am so good at putting the frogs in the fridge for what seems like forever… Thanks for sharing about the mental workout you are going through with the frogs, too!