Just Eat The Frog!!!

Well, I may have found my waking up solution. I was reading some random article I got to by searching for something totally different. (Ya' know---"Oh, look. I'll click here. Oh, that's cool. I want to look at that. Click here, click there. What was I on here for?")

Anyway, the article mentioned "the old saying--Eat an ugly frog first thing in the morning, then everything else will be better."

I had never heard this saying before and googled it. Well, turns out everyone on the planet has heard of this but me. This old saying stems from some quotes of Mark Twain's and some other guy has even written a procrastination book based on this! Isn't that a riot?

So, Ol' Mark Twain said a couple of things to the effect of:

If you eat an ugly frog in the morning, the rest of your day will be wonderful.

and

If you're gonna eat the ugly frog, don't look at it too long.

This is just the best advice ever!!! Now, I know to some of you born-organized people this whole concept is very obvious. But for those of us who struggle to get one foot in front of the other each day, it's ingenious! The idea is to take your most distasteful (or daunting) task of the day and get it over with first thing in the morning. Followed with the idea, that if you leave all the ugly frogs undone, they are sitting around the house making you feel bad. Which is just so darn true! The messier my house gets, the less I want to do and the more down I get.

So, I've decided that my big ol' ugly frog to swallow is getting up early. The past couple of mornings, I've actually managed to get up kinda early. I lay there and instead of waging a battle in my mind of sleep more vs. get up, I keep repeating to myself "Just eat the frog! Just eat the frog! Your whole day will be better if you just eat the frog!!!"

And, ya' know what . . .

I've gotten alot more done than usual the past couple of days!!! Even some dreaded phone calls!

BTW, I have not read the book. I did read alot of the reviews online and it sounds pretty cool. Just google it and you'll find all kinds of blogs that review it and tell you the basic principles of it. The only thing is I think the author calls the frog your most daunting task and in my mind, my most daunting tasks are not necessarily the ones that need to be done first. To me, daunting is cleaning out a closet or planning a month's worth of menus. Frogs for me are things like calling and making appointments or unloading the dishwasher. I put them off and they drag me down. Seems to be worth a read though.

Also, BTW, how cool is the frog cookie! My sister had absolutely no idea I've learned about eating frogs and showed up at my house today with the froggie cookie! Don'tcha think God is getting a chuckle right now? I love coincidences like that!

Open wide and gulp down those frogs, ya'll!

Mama Said