Even if I weren’t a vegetarian, I wouldn’t eat that frog

Freelance Strategist uses “eat the frog” as a metaphor for tackling the toughest jobs—whatever they are in your world—at the start of the day. You’re less likely to be disturbed and then everything else you have to do looks easy. This is certainly an option, but it’s not something I’d pick as a rule.
Lately I’ve been doing the opposite: I pick the easiest article on my current ehow list that I can find to start the morning. I’ve had plenty of experience with articles that turn out insanely complicated, or that simply aren’t workable for some reason. When I work on these the result is a)I spend much more time than I anticipated or b)I waste time on an article that doesn’t happen. Either way I’m behind.
Frankly, that’s a shitty way to start the morning. Doing an article I know I can bat out on time, or even faster, that gives me confidence the rest of the day will flow smoothly.
Another problem is that what’s difficult isn’t what’s necessarily important. The Eisenhower Matrix is a time-management approach that breaks tasks into four categories: Urgent and Important; Urgent and Not Important; Important and Not Urgent; Not Urgent and Not Important. It’s based on Eisenhower’s observation that a lot of important jobs aren’t urgent; working on a novel without a publisher’s deadline, for instance, isn’t urgent but it’s important if you want to finish it. The goal of the matrix is to focus your mind on stuff that’s important but not urgent—stuff we could let slide—rather than urgent stuff that isn’t important (“Get back to me with this ASAP!”).
I haven’t tried this approach, but it strikes me as working better for which tasks to tackle first than “eat the frog.”
And, of course, some people simply aren’t at peak even if they’re awake in the morning. If you can’t talk coherently before the second cup of coffee, for instance, don’t try the difficult interview any earlier in the morning.
In other writing advice:
•David Wallace on the risk of writing more for others than yourself.
•Zadie Smith’s 10 rules of writing.