How To Stop Procrastinating

The secret is to eat the biggest and ugliest frog first

If you grew up in an unsafe environment, it is easy to overreact to stressors.

Before I get into coping with unfounded fear, I want to tackle what seems obvious, which is sometimes fear is there for a reason. Sometimes, our emotions are accurate — it tells us that there is something we need to pay attention to and take care of now, and in these cases, it is a good idea to take action.

“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” ― Mark Twain

For example, doing taxes always bothers me. I simply hated it. I used to procrastinate doing taxes, where I would do nothing other than complain and stress about having to do it from about January to March, and then finally start doing it at the end of March when the stress build-up is too much for me to ignore.

I’ve done this for years, and I know many people do too. It is utterly irrational because, unless we decide to live outside of the law, we have to get our taxes done, so why not do it sooner rather than later so we can move on with life?

So this year, I set aside recurring blocks of time on my calendar to work on taxes, starting in January. I listed all…