Eating the frog first is a phrase I heard some years ago to describe how training, doing an exercise class or a long walk/jog first thing in the morning can enable you to develop a healthy daily routine.
This saying, I believe, was made by Mark Twain to prioritize difficult tasks. He went on to say that if there are two frogs, eat the biggest one first.
It certainly helped me. I preferred a morning workout. It helped me complete other daily tasks throughout the day as I felt more motivated, more confident in my skin and it made me make better meal choices for that day.
And I am finding that this rule can assist in creating a productive routine for my kids at the moment. As those familiar with my blogs will know, my wife and I are currently buying a home in Portugal. Our boys haven’t yet got a school so we are homeschooling them. As each minute of the day passes we find that we are losing their interest to open up a text book as the lure of the pool, football in the garden and iPads take over.
And they are important too, of course, but as parents it is also our duty to keep up with their learning, especially as learning Portuguese is at the core of it.
But it isn’t just them who lets the day slip away without any schooling. If my wife and I don’t hit the ground running in the morning it is very easy to fall into the trap of allowing ourselves to consider this moment to be a vacation. There are many things that keep reminding us that it is not, however, such as ongoing contract negotiations between us and the house vendors and the unfinished business we are tying up in the UK. But these are yet more reasons to postpone the schoolwork.
Simply put, if we are to proceed with a healthy, stress free day we need to get all of the crappy stuff done early. We need to eat the frog first so that we can enjoy the yummy tasty things on the plate without worry.
Never Give Up PT 