know your frogs 🐸
The three rules of frogs
Eat the frog
“The frog” is the task that you need to do the most, but want to do the least. It’s probably your hardest of most ambiguous task. But can also be your most valuable. Avoiding the frogs leads to “busy work”.
Do your most important task first thing in the morning. Get it out the way – and everything else you do that day is an extra “win”.
Do this every day.
Don’t be a frog in boiling water
The fable is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.
Wether this is true is not really important. It is a metaphor for allowing the slow build up of undesirable things, that you’d be shocked by if you saw them with fresh eyes.
Don’t be afraid to leap-frog
Leap-frogging is going an extra level above or below your direct manager/report. Leap-frogging applies both upwards (above your manager) and downwards (below your report).
This is often called a ‘skip-level’ meeting. It helps everyone (both the more, and less, senior people) to understand what’s happening in the organisation. The manager benefits from being more in touch with the day-to-day, and then report benefits from access to the senior people in the business.