Treat Your Business

045 Maximizing Productivity: How 'Eating the Frog' Can Transform Your Business

• Katie Bell • Season 1 • Episode 45

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In this episode of the "Treat Your Business" podcast, Katie delves into the concept of "eating the frog" for increased productivity. She explores how tackling the most significant or challenging tasks first thing in the morning can set a positive tone for the day.

Katie also shares valuable insights on choosing the right tasks, making the most of the morning's optimal performance window, and overcoming procrastination. Additionally, she introduces the concept of Parkinson's Law and its role in time management, emphasising the benefits of setting specific time limits for tasks.

Join Katie as she guides you towards a more productive and focused approach to your business tasks.

Ket Takeaways: 

  • Eating the Frog: This metaphor encourages tackling the most significant or challenging tasks first thing in the morning, setting a positive tone for the day
  • Choosing the Right Tasks: Katie suggests that if a task is consistently being avoided, it might be a sign that it's not the best fit for the business owner. They should consider delegating it or seeking external help.
  • Optimal Performance Window: Mornings are generally when energy and focus levels are at their peak. Utilize this time for tasks that require creativity and significant focus.
  • Overcoming Procrastination: Eating the frog in the morning breaks the cycle of avoidance and reduces the stress associated with procrastination.
  • Parkinson's Law and Time Management: Setting specific time limits for tasks using tools like an hourglass can significantly enhance productivity. Tasks often expand to fit the time allocated, so setting limits can lead to greater efficiency.
  • Discipline and Focus: To make the most of the morning productivity window, it's essential to minimize distractions by turning off notifications, putting the phone on airplane mode, and avoiding email and communication channels.
  • Benefits of Time Blocking: Katie highlights the effectiveness of time blocking in her coaching practice. By allocating specific time slots to tasks, it's possible to accomplish more in a shorter period.
  • Save Administrative Tasks for Later: Reserve email and day-to-day administrative work for later in the day when creativity and focus may not be as cr

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Katie Bell:

Welcome to the treat your business podcast, we are going to be diving and delving into a metaphorical feast today, why eating the frog is the key to boosting your productivity, we're going to discover how you can by tackling your biggest tasks first thing in the morning, it will really revolutionise your day and your productivity levels. So what does eating the frog mean? Let's break down this very weird metaphor. Well, it's about confronting, not always the most challenging tasks. But it can be those tasks that I always like to say, are the ones that are going to move your business forwards. So often people think eating the frog is putting the most challenging task or the the most important task early in the day. Yes, it is. And it can be about putting the tasks that you always avoid at the beginning of the day. But what I prefer to think of it is as if there's a task that you're avoiding over and over and over again, it's probably a sign that you shouldn't be doing it in your business anyway. And you need to find somebody else to do it. Or if you say to me, but I don't have anybody else, Katie, then that would be and it really is only you. And you don't think you can find somebody on people per hour, or on Fiverr, that could do this task for you, then you want to eat the frog, that's when you would make the task sit at the beginning of the day. So it frees up your mental space and sets a positive tone for the rest of the day. I like to make sure that if it's a task that is going to move the business forwards, or its creativity, or it's content creation, or it's things that really only can be made that that does it. It happens at the beginning of the day, when we record our podcasts. So for example, this we're in a bulk recording session today. And I made sure it was the morning session, because I would not be in the right space to do this as the day goes on, because I'm more creative and more energetic earlier in the day. So the frog kind of represents something that you'd rather avoid. But I also like you to think about bringing the task that isn't something that you really want to avoid. But it is a big thing. You know, you shouldn't be doing something every day to create visibility in your business to push sales and revenue. Every single day, whether it's a five minute task, an hour task, whatever it is something every single day to move your business forward to grow your business. That's where we want to be eating the frog. So mornings mostly are when our energy and focus levels are at their peak. So to tackling that big creative tasks that demanding task will capitalise on that you're kind of optimum optimal performance window for your brain, it then creates this kind of sense of accomplishment and motivation. And that momentum will then carry over to other tasks that you have to then achieve throughout the day. So it generally makes them feel more achievable, and enhances your productivity. It can also help you if you are somebody that procrastinates it can help you overcome procrastination. Now, procrastination, I think is a tricky subject because procrastination for me often is because the task or the the thing that you're doing either doesn't align with your vision, and it doesn't feel good. And that's why you're avoiding it. Or you're just not wired to do that job. And that's why you're avoiding it. Or procrastination can be actually you are wired to do it but it's stepping you massively out of your comfort zone. So we we do everything we possibly can including emptying the dishwasher hanging the washing out doing anything hoovering when you don't even like hoovering to stop yourself from stepping into that task. And that's the ego, working to try and hold you in the safe zone. So procrastination can be a mix of things. But when you bring the task forwards, and you do it first thing in the morning, it breaks the cycle of avoidance. And it helps reduce the stress that comes with procrastination. When you get frustrated that you're just not moving forwards. And when you constantly have this approach, remember last week we talked about how long it takes to build a habit. And it's all about consistency. You start to build discipline, you start to build resilience, and you start to build a growth mindset. And it teaches you that you can face discomfort you can embrace growth opportunities. So by bringing an eating that frog Work First thing in the morning because it can have so many different benefits. And what I'd like to also talk about is when you eat the frog, so think about that task that you know is going to move your business forward or that you've just been putting off, you've checked in, and it aligns with what you're really trying to create. You've checked in, and it's something that you definitely should be doing, or you've checked in and gone. Yeah, I know what you're saying, Katie, it probably shouldn't be me. But right now, it's only me, okay. And you put the task first thing in the morning, it means that you have to be disciplined enough to not open your inbox to turn your phone on to aeroplane mode, and to set yourself a time goal. Now when you when our members join the Thrive programme, or programmes one of them, we send them a little gift. And the gift is an hourglass, and it's a beautiful big hourglass, and it sits on your desk, it looks really modern and really simple and really gorgeous, what I think it does, and our clients or is it really kind of like, oh, you know, and it's the gift of time, we send them a gift of knowledge and we send them a gift of time. And the gift of time is about working with something called Parkinson's Law. And Parkinson's Law is that your a task will expand to the time that you allocate for it, a task will expand to the time that you give to it or you allocate for it. So if you have a task that you are going to set earlier in the day when you're going to eat the frog, and it could be website edits, it could be financial forecasting, it could be podcast creation, it could be programme planning, whatever it is, okay, it needs to be that big, juicy frog, you're then going to set yourself an amount of time that you're going to give to that task. And that's where our hourglass comes in. Because they are 30 minute, our glasses. And it's all of our clients go, it is amazing what you get done. When you set yourself a time limit. When you do that task will expand. Now what I mean by that is it doesn't necessarily mean the task gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It means that if you set yourself web editing, for example, okay, because you've got a new website being built, and you've got to go through and edit all the pages or whatever it is. And you say to yourself, Okay, well, I've got to get it done Monday, it will take off Monday, because other things will happen. That means the task doesn't get done, because you've set yourself the whole of Monday to do it. If you said it has to happen between eight and 10. On Monday, the task will take between eight and 10. It's amazing how your productivity and efficiency can shift when you start setting time goals. I remember being a little girl. And we used to have a buzzer on the oven, like and you could set a timer. And it used to buzz really loudly. And my mom, I remember from being really small, used to set yourself a timer all the time. And she used to say right, I'm going to do, I'm going to do the signing. And I'm going to do it for half an hour. And she would put the timer on. Well, she was set aside for like she's gonna do some cleaning, and she's set the timer. Maybe this is why I work in in this way now and I have a really strong worth work ethic I'm sure it is. But when you set yourself a task, it will get done within that time. Obviously, there are always going to be things if you set yourself a ridiculously long task. That means you've got to edit 500 pages and you give yourself half an hour. Okay, well that's unachievable. You've got to be kind of relative to the size of the task. But if you can have aeroplane mode on your phone, no distraction from slack or your communication channels or your emails, or Asana or anything else that brings up and notifications. I am in the middle of podcast recording. My phone is on aeroplane mode. I don't have my emails open. I have not yet checked them today. I have not yet been on my slack channel today, which is where our internal comms comes from. I only have this tab open on my browser because I'm in a recording studio. There is no like literally no distractions because I've got to get this done. And it's happening first thing in the morning or earlier in the day. So this can really if you are a busy clinic owner business owner, you find yourself spinning a load of plates trying to do too many things. tasks take too long you procrastinating you need to do these two things. You need to eat the frog and you need to set yourself a time limit to all the tasks that you do when I have a busy coaching day. So I have all my time block everything. Everything is time blocked in certain ways. So I'm focused on one thing and not a million things. In my coaching days. We have, I have 15 minutes between each call, it just allows me to reset, put all my call notes for my clients into my, my software and reset for the next one. There's shit I can get done in those 15 minutes, I cannot even tell you. Because it's Parkinson's Law in its full effect. I don't go back into things that I know are going to distract me. But if it's something that I need to get done, and it's going to take me five or 10 minutes, bam, I've done it, because I've got a deadline and then I'm on to my next thing. So just try it. Guys, try looking ahead at your diary and thinking when you can bring some of those tasks first thing in the morning, and save all of your emails and save all the admin day to day admin to later in the day when you don't have to be creative. I hope you've enjoyed this little power podcast on eating the frog. Go and do it. Let me know how your how yours tastes. And thank you for listening. I appreciate all of the lessons and all the followers that you will give me and I look forward to seeing you on next week's episode because we're going to be talking more about time management. And we're going to talk about why you should not be the one to wash your car. See you next week.

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Katie Bell

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