Have you ever heard the Mark Twain quote, "Eat a live frog in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day?"

Several years ago, I was reminded of this quote when another entrepreneur said that he "ate a frog" each morning as a way to get through his daily task list.

I laughed, but he was serious.

Eating a frog has become a productivity 'hack' for many entrepreneurs and independent consultants. It means doing the most challenging and unpalatable thing first to get it out of the way.

By doing so, you free up all that brain space you would have otherwise used to procrastinate and avoid that hard job so you can focus on other things.

Plus, you've got a big win chalked up for the day nice and early, so everything you accomplish after that is icing on that cake.

I've thought about my daily frog ever since that conversation.

Some days it's big and warty.

Some days it's small and ordinary.

And, on rare occasions, it's deceptively poisonous.

But regardless, I still find it a helpful approach to getting things done that I might otherwise just keep putting off because they're hard or boring or scary.

I'll admit, however, I wasn't very consistent with my frog-eating until this year.

Here's what changed things up for me.

In December, I received a habit tracker as a swag-bag gift from a virtual conference I attended. I had tried trackers before with little success.

The design of this tracker, however, really sparked something in me. I cracked the thing open the first week of January and have been using it ever since, every single day.

My tracker is filled with healthy habits that I want to develop to provide a better balance between business and life, except for one item, which reads, "Eat at least a little frog."

It's my daily reminder to do something with some bite and challenge to it even if I don't want to. All the better if I can get it done early in the day.

The honest truth is that I've felt so much more productive this year than I have in I don't remember how long.

Now, I'm not necessarily recommending that you eat a frog every morning and/or that you use a habit tracker.

I am recommending that you consider what will work best for you to keep yourself on track and motivated so you can actually see and feel the progress you are making each and every day.

As I've said before, real change happens from small, consistent actions.

After all, you can't climb a mountain without continuing to put one foot in front of the other, one small step at a time.

In other news...

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P.S. Missed last week's message on feedback and testimonials? Find it here.

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