Hold on a second—aren’t productivity and procrastination opposites? Well, yes and no. And maybe. Let’s break it down.

Do you have a frog on your to-do list?

Recently, I wrote a blog post on Between Carpools (check it out here if you haven’t seen it), and I mentioned a productivity method called Eat the Frog.

Eat the frog

The phrase “eat the frog” came from Mark Twain. “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.” In Brian Tracy’s book on productivity (Eat That Frog!), he defines frogs as the most challenging task. They’re the things you usually put off until you are pushed up against a deadline.

So, what to do instead? Do the hardest things first. If you have two challenging tasks, go with the harder one. (And if you’re not sure which is hardest, choose the task that will carry you towards your bigger goals.) Instead of waiting around for motivation, do it right away.

This method takes some getting used to. It can take time to build up the discipline muscles until it feels less painful, but it does feel amazing once the task is done.

Is this method for everyone, all of the time?

I don’t think there’s a single method that will work across the board, no matter what any productivity guru claims. We’re all different, and luckily there are different ways of doing things.

For some of us, taking on the hardest thing right away is a good challenge, and will make the rest of our day so much easier. But, for some of us, taking this approach can make us freeze. The pressure feels like too much. We simply cannot eat that frog.

So what to do instead?

Productive procrastination

Productive procrastination is a way of taking your procrastination and using it for good. You knock a bunch of easier, smaller things off your list, and ease into your day. It’s like going on a ramp onto a highway. You don’t start out at 75mph—you slowly increase your speed. This builds a sense of momentum. You feel accomplished from taking care of the smaller tasks, and that helps propel you into the bigger, scarier things.

There are two pitfalls to look out for when taking this approach:

  1. You can end up pushing off the bigger tasks indefinitely.
  2. You can get lost in tasks that aren’t actually productive. (Like reorganizing your spice cabinet.)

Using productive procrastination to your advantage means choosing smaller, easier tasks that are still necessary to get done, and eventually taking steps to the bigger, more challenging tasks.

So, do I eat the frog or do I productively procrastinate?

I find that some days I need to tackle the hardest thing first and get it off my mind, and other days, I need to start slow. It’s worthwhile trying both of these approaches, just to see how it works for you.

The first step is identify which things on your list are your frogs. From there, you’ll see how you want to proceed.