Do you ever ‘Eat the Frog’?
It’s Spring holiday time – a time when multi-tasking reaches a new level and distractions come thick and fast. For those who choose to take some time off, while we aim to remove ‘work’ from our task list, there are still many other tasks to juggle. And for those who remain working over the Spring holidays, even a carefully planned schedule can get de-railed by an unexpected request.
We regularly support our clients with overcoming ‘distractions and de-railers’ and, given how prevalent they are at this time of year, we thought we’d share some of our top techniques for maintaining focus and getting things done.
Poker chips
Imagine that each poker chip represents one hour of a day. This helps to remind you of the finite nature of time in a day – you only have 24 hours to play with. What will your ‘strategic spending’ plan look like? We only get to spend our time (although others are often quite happy to spend it for us!), so you decide what gets your time and attention.
OHIO
This is for small tasks that end up taking far too much time because we visit them more than once. OHIO stands for Only Handle It Once. We read an email or message, we log it in our brain and postpone it for later, we return to our chosen work, we come back to it at another time. Sounds fine. But when we do this with many tasks, they take up valuable real estate in our head. And our brain becomes like a service desk with a load of tickets open. Either don’t read it in the first place, or resolve it there and then, avoiding it being reviewed multiple times. This reduces procrastination, mental clutter, and anxiety.
Pickups / distractions
How often do you absent mindedly pick up your phone or your tablet and then find yourself distracted? According to research, on average it’s estimated that we do this between 58 to 144 times per day, with younger age groups having higher pickup counts, sometimes exceeding 200 times a day. We are prompted to do this by all sorts of ‘clever’ tools designed to entice us back – notifications, messages, mail, social media updates, news, calendar, search function, and more. We suggest that you find the digital wellbeing tools on your iPhone or Android and actively set things up to give your brain a break.
Eat the Frog
This is one of our all-time favourite strategies that was first introduced by Brian Tracy. He tells us that ‘Eating the Frog’ beats procrastination, reduces anxiety, and builds momentum. The theory is that you tackle your single most important or challenging task first, and you avoid distractions and less important activity until the frog has been dealt with. Have you got an important presentation to write, but also several emails to respond to and some expenses to claim? Sort out the presentation first and then get to the smaller things.
As you plan the rest of your week, it’s worth pausing to consider where your own distractions and de-railers tend to appear. Which habits quietly steal your time without adding value? What could you do differently this week to protect your focus, your energy, or even just your peace of mind? And perhaps most importantly, which “frog” is waiting to be eaten?
