How many different things can you do first thing in the morning before it stops being “first thing” and becomes “all morning” or even “all day”?
Some of the “successful people morning routines” you see in those productivity articles that keep landing in my Inbox are so busy you’d have to get up at 3:00 a.m. to be done by noon, let alone before work. Whenever I see one of those listicles like, “Five Things All Successful People Do Before 7:00am” (because all successful people are morning people, obviously), I just want to crawl back into bed and stay there.
My personal favorite is, Eat the frog!
Wait, what now? This phrase comes from a bit of popular wisdom attributed to Mark Twain, who famously said that if you eat a live frog first thing every morning, everything you do for the rest of day will seem easy by comparison.
In other words, do the nastiest thing on your to-do list first.
I tried to eat the frog for years. But I just couldn’t.
Instead of just getting right to it, I’d dance around with the frog first, putting off the eating it part as long as I could, usually doing busy work that was infinitely less important than the frog. I’d do research, answer emails, reorganize my filing system, anything but the frog. Turns out this is a very common ADHD trait — that need to focus on the less important thing because the really important thing is too hard, the reward way too far in the future. So we focus on the easier things with more immediate rewards.
So I’d do those easier, less important things and then when I finally had no choice but to eat the frog, I’d just sit and stare at my computer screen trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I had things written down, I knew it was important, but damned if I could figure out how to get started — until my eyelids started to get heavy and I’d find myself dozing off.
By the time the early birds were winding down for the day, the frog would still just be sitting there, smoking a cigar and having a glass of brandy, daring me to take a bite. It would often be 4:00 p.m. by the time I was able to actually do the nastiest and most important thing on my plate.
Now, I’m a night owl by nature, so 4:00 p.m. is actually a pretty good time to start work. But not after sitting there fighting with myself all day. After a day like that, I’d have neither the patience nor energy to eat the damn frog, and certainly not enough time left in the day to do it well.
More often than not, I’d end my day staggering under a rock of self-recriminations, feeling incompetent, defeated, fearful, anxious, ashamed, and well and truly f*ked up. I was smart and I could do the work, so what the hell was wrong with me?
As it turns out, there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just neurodivergent, wired differently from people who can arrive at the office at 7:30 a.m., eat the frog by 9:30, and then get on with the rest of it, with apparently no effort at all. Being wired differently means I need to take a different approach.
Personally, I need an appetizer, an amuse-bouche, something light and frothy, airy, fun. Or if not exactly frothy or fun, at least nourishing and not painful, something I can succeed at easily, something that gives me a sense of accomplishment, equanimity, maybe even joy. Something that boosts dopamine and doesn’t leave me with an albatross of shame.
But even that isn’t possible without a quiet, unhurried, simple morning routine, not even trying to do five things before 7:00 a.m.
I need a gentle awakening, not bolting out of bed before my eyes are open. A glass of cool water with my meds. Then coffee, put away last night’s dishes, have a bite to eat. Ten minutes on the meditation cushion, then ten minutes of writing in my notebook — a way of taking my pulse before I move on to my workday. And now, after a couple of hours of floating quietly in my own space, gradually grounding myself, now I feel ready to face whatever challenges the day may bring.
It may not be the most efficient way to start the day, but it’s peaceful, and that suits me just fine. No drama, no adrenaline, no hard landings.
And no frogs.
One Response
I love this post! Frogs are your “favorite”?! [Eyeroll!] [barf!]
You taught me this, and I learned it so well, I’m telling many others — now I have a blog post to point them to, as well!
I have tremendous trouble estimating how long a “frog” will take.
It’s often only a “frog” because it consists of multiple steps that I’m not sure I can know in advance what order to do them in, and it may require stuff I don’t have, or logins I don’t remember… so it has the potential to take way more focused energy than I actually HAVE.
So *I* need to support myself in preventing myself from scaring myself into eating the frog whole, but then crashing and burning and ignoring hunger, thirst, and other basic needs — sitting there being unproductive but not allowing myself to do other things until the frog is “all the way eaten” — which it can never be in one sitting…
My day goes best when I have an appointment within 2 hours of my usual wake-up time. I love appointments, and I have plenty of alarms to help me not miss them (most of the time), so I notice I have a better day when I either get to go straight to an appointment, or I have a nice chunk of time (not too lnog!) to try and do something hard — but the appointment will stop me from trying all day.