Episode 320
Pillar #4: Eat That Frog
Purpose, Passion, Profit, retreat for men.
In this episode, we dive into the concept of productivity through prioritizing your tasks and tackling the hardest things first.
A study from Harvard Business School shows the significance of starting your day with the most challenging tasks to maximize long-term performance and profitability.
Join us as we explore the "4th pillar of productivity" and gain insights on how to slay your dragons and eat that frog for a more productive workday. Stay tuned for valuable tips and strategies to boost your productivity and achieve your goals.
Transcript
And finally, we come to our 4th pillar of productivity.
Speaker:Slay your dragons. Or in the words of Brian Tracy, Eat That
Speaker:Frog. Great little book if you haven't read it. Eat That Frog. Again,
Speaker:author Brian Tracy. What we wanna focus
Speaker:on in this, in eat that frog or slay that
Speaker:dragon, is prioritizing your workday. Well, it's
Speaker:easy often to start the day with the low hanging fruit, the easy
Speaker:stuff like email or, you know, checking our social
Speaker:our business social media so we can, you know, say it's business
Speaker:stuff. The most productive entrepreneurs focus on
Speaker:getting their most important work done first.
Speaker:Mark Twain said, if it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do
Speaker:it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat 2 frogs,
Speaker:it's best to eat the biggest one first. In other words,
Speaker:what he's saying is tackle the hardest things before you do anything
Speaker:else. But, how does this stack up in real life? Does it really make
Speaker:sense to do the hardest things first? I have a couple of
Speaker:examples for you. 1 from my own experience in in working
Speaker:or going through 75 hard right at the moment. I'm on only
Speaker:on, like, day 12, and I've got feels like 70 bazillion days
Speaker:to go, but we're we're getting there and working on it. And the other
Speaker:example I have is actually a study that Harvard Business
Speaker:School released in 2017. So, in
Speaker:my example, when I'm getting down on the bench press, when
Speaker:I'm going for it, I can do more weight at
Speaker:the beginning of the workout than I can as the workout progresses
Speaker:because I get more tired. I lose strength. I lose
Speaker:willpower because I'm tired and I've been working out hard. I
Speaker:can do a lot more at the beginning and by the end,
Speaker:as I'm trying to get the reps in, I'm down to about half of what
Speaker:I started out with because I'm trying to get those reps in.
Speaker:My power is diminished. I am not
Speaker:as productive at the end as I am at the beginning.
Speaker:Now, going to the paper that Harvard Business School released, this paper, if you want
Speaker:to look it up, I I have a link in the show notes, but it's
Speaker:called task selection and workload. A focus on completing
Speaker:easy tasks hurts long term performance. The study
Speaker:was done, in the emergency department of a metropolitan Hospital
Speaker:and they gathered the data over 24 months between
Speaker:2,000,6 and 2,007. And this involved over
Speaker:90 1,000 distinct patient encounters.
Speaker:This study was done to try to discover how starting with
Speaker:easier tasks versus the harder ones affected productivity.
Speaker:And they concluded that completing easier tasks does
Speaker:create short term sense of satisfaction, but it can negatively
Speaker:impact your long term productivity. As explained
Speaker:by the paper, by selecting the easier task, an individual
Speaker:gets work done quicker and likely feels good doing it
Speaker:and they call this exploitation. However, by
Speaker:choosing the harder task, they call this exploration, one
Speaker:creates an opportunity to learn. Although always
Speaker:selecting the harder task may not be optimal, if one
Speaker:continually chooses exploitation or the easier path,
Speaker:then longer term performance suffers. In other words,
Speaker:short term victory feels good in the moment and it makes a person feel productive
Speaker:when they accomplish something. But because they're not pushing themselves to
Speaker:learn and overcome the harder task, they're limiting their
Speaker:potential. Okay? And that's the opposite of what we're
Speaker:trying to do here. We're trying to maximize our potential.
Speaker:Not only did they find that out, but they found that physicians
Speaker:who always chose the easier task were actually less
Speaker:profitable to the hospital to the hospital in the
Speaker:long run. So what that's saying is you can be more productive
Speaker:and make more money if you do your harder task first, if you eat the
Speaker:frog first thing in the morning. Once you know what your
Speaker:most difficult or complicated tasks are, do your best to take
Speaker:those on first. Hit them first thing in the morning when you're strongest.
Speaker:Like myself at the beginning of the workout, I'm pushing a lot more weight than
Speaker:I am at the end of the workout because I'm stronger at the beginning and
Speaker:weaker at the end. Even if your difficult tasks don't take you the
Speaker:longest, they're gonna take a lot more effort. Just like
Speaker:when I'm working out, I can maybe only get 3 to 5 reps of the
Speaker:heaviest weight at the beginning. I can't even get
Speaker:one of those reps at the end of the workout, but I can get
Speaker:5 to 10 of a much lighter weight, and I can keep
Speaker:on getting it done. As the day goes on, your ability
Speaker:to focus diminishes. Your willpower falls apart, and
Speaker:you begin to, like, putting work off till the next day. It's like, I just
Speaker:I don't wanna do anymore. I'm done. If you choose the
Speaker:hardest jobs first, then the hard work's over when you're getting
Speaker:tired and you're able to finish up the day with your easier work.
Speaker:That gives you a greater feeling of productivity
Speaker:because they're easy tasks and you can get them done easier and that gives you
Speaker:a boost moving into the next day when you're ready to start it
Speaker:all over again, slaying the dragons, eating the
Speaker:frog, however you wanna put it. That is the
Speaker:4th pillar of a productive person.
Speaker:Now, if you like this little series that I did on the 4 pillars of
Speaker:productivity, you're gonna love the purpose, passion,
Speaker:profit retreat that I'm hosting for men in September in
Speaker:a little town in North Carolina. We're gonna be talking about productivity.
Speaker:We're gonna be talking about how to live your purpose, find your
Speaker:passion, and create profit doing work that doesn't suck. We are
Speaker:becoming better men, better leaders, better husbands, better fathers,
Speaker:better all around people through this event. And we're gonna go white
Speaker:water rafting on one of the days too. It's a 3 day event. I'm gonna
Speaker:drop a link down in the show notes where you can go check it out.
Speaker:If you have any questions that aren't answered on on the site or questions about
Speaker:the podcast or if you have a topic you'd like to hear about, send me
Speaker:an email coach atkennethash.com. Love
Speaker:to hear from you. Can't wait to see you at the event in
Speaker:September. Do good work.
