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Are your ambitious goals often delayed by the dread of tackling difficult tasks?
Here’s a game-changing strategy, helping you cultivate heroism daily to accelerate your growth.
Brian Tracy's "Eat That Frog"
You may have heard of the books that describes the technique called “Eat That Frog” by Brian Tracy.
The idea is to tackle the most unpleasant and difficult task first thing in the morning. It came from this quote attributed to Mark Twain: “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”
By tackling the hardest task first and getting it out of the way, this will not only grant you a sense of accomplishment but also provide you with a surge of momentum, energy, and focus that will carry you through the rest of your day.
This technique can be useful for making progress on our goals, as it forces us to get out of our comfort zone and address daunting tasks. However, if the task is very overwhelming (e.g.: catching up on all unread messages or conducting market research), the simple thought of it might create a lot of resistance, preventing us from even starting!
Taken to the extreme, if your goal is to “Eat The Frog” first thing in the morning but you end up procrastinating, your working day will start much later than expected.
Introducing the Heroic Hour
What I call the “Heroic Hour” offers all the advantages of Brian Tracy’s technique, without the overwhelm. Here's how it works: You'll take on your most daunting tasks, but only for an hour. By knowing it's just one hour, this technique reduces the overwhelm and makes it easier to start.
To make starting even easier, plan the exact tasks for your Heroic Hour the day before, including a detailed plan for the first 10 minutes.
How do you identify the high-leverage, daunting tasks that you should be working on?
Simply ask yourself:
- What are some tasks you have been procrastinating on?
- What are some tasks you are afraid of starting?
- If you had only one hour for the day to work on your goal, what would you do?
After selecting your tasks, outline the exact steps for the first ten minutes of your Heroic Hour. For example: write a follow-up message to John’s referral.
Next, to reduce overwhelm and ease into your work, set up your environment with all necessary resources prepared. For instance, open your mailbox and have your notes about John’s referral ready.
Finally, set an alarm for your Heroic Hour in the morning, finish your day, and go to bed.
Reduce distraction, increase focus
The next day, rise to the challenge and be heroic!
Get into your workspace and, right before starting your Heroic Hour, make sure that you eliminate any distractions. Here is a free guide I call the Distraction Shield, compiling my best strategies and tools to reclaim your focus and time.
After you’re sure that nothing will interrupt you in the next hour, set your timer and just start.
Pro tip: If you enjoy music while working, choose a playlist or song that you could replay at the beginning of each Heroic Hour. This will serve as a trigger for your brain to get into a flow state faster.
Consistency > Intensity
An hour later, your timer goes off and you will have two choices:
- Keep working. Perhaps you got into a flow state and want to build on that momentum.
- Reward yourself. Have a break, do something fun, and signal to your brain that what you did was good, and you’d like more of this in the future.
No matter if you worked for an hour or more, make sure you get your reward and break.
True and sustainable productivity is not about hustling until you burn out. Recovery is essential if we want to stay productive in the long run. We want to optimize for consistency rather than intensity, do a bit every day rather than a lot at the last minute.
Summary
- Identify high-leverage, daunting tasks by asking yourself what tasks you've been procrastinating on or are afraid to start.
- Plan the tasks and the first ten minutes of your Heroic Hour in detail the day before.
- Set up your work environment with all the necessary resources.
- Dedicate one hour each morning to work on these tasks, reducing distractions and increasing focus using your Distraction Shield (available here).
- Reward yourself after completing the hour to recover and signal your brain that this behavior is positive and desirable.
- Prioritize consistency over intensity to avoid burnout and optimize for long-term productivity