Sometimes it feels like I’m constantly eating frogs. I’m not talking delicious frog legs battered in garlic and beer, but those nasty big things you hate doing but have to. I say big things because I’m not referring to dish washing or vacuum cleaning, which may be frog-like tasks to other people but not to me. My big frogs usually have something to do with complex admin, difficult phone calls, and keeping promises I shouldn’t have made. Since I read somewhere that it’s best to eat the frog first thing in the morning – it was actually Mark Twain saying “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day” – I’m trying to do just that. It doesn’t make the task at hand any nicer, but at least you don’t have to dread it the rest of the day. Or week, if you are a bit like me. I even try to make it a happy thing, my happiness coming from being proud I did it! I have the rest of the day to do the real happy stuff: doing things that need to be done, and which I really like doing. And also, just to happify myself: doing things that don’t need to be done at all, but which I just like doing. Making happy phone calls, for example. Or even better, drink happy cups of coffee with happy people. They say (no not Mark Twain, but other people on the Internet) that, after the frogs, you should go from upper left to lower left. I recommend mixing those a bit. We can’t be efficient all day, can we?

What are your frogs?