Fight Procrastination Day was yesterday, Sept. 6. Oh … today is the sixth … I guess this means this is out on time. Cool! (I knew that, really I did!)

Here are a few thoughts on putting an end to procrastination.

In some workplaces, it seems to be impossible to get everything done.

Brian Tracy wrote a great little book called Eat that Frog! that helps people get over procrastinating. He also plays with a couple of quotes from American writer Mark Twain that help us to remember what we are meant to do, and how to stop putting things off. The idea is this:

“If the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long.”

We are often guilty about procrastinating, and this stops us from getting things done. And as you likely already know, when we procrastinate about one thing, it can also interfere with getting other things done.

As Twain said, “The rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.”

This quote is about taking the frog – the thing we are procrastinating about – and getting on with eating it. Clearly, after you’ve eaten a great big frog, everything else you have to do that day is going to be easier than what you started off with.

By procrastinating, that thing we are putting off often becomes a bigger and more daunting task than it really is, and the more we think about (rather than doing something about it), the more space it can take up in our head.

This is a very simple concept that can have a profound impact on our results. There is no self-satisfaction in knowing that we are letting things get away from us, and we feel better and more motivated when we go ahead and get these things crossed off our to-do lists.

So don’t put it off until tomorrow — starting today, eat that frog and do your worst task first!