"Revolutionary France may seem like a strange place to find a life hack, but in the 1790s, the French satirist Nicolas Chamfort offered some stark advice to cope with our daily travails. "One should swallow a toad every morning, so as not to find anything disgusting for the rest of the day," he wrote. In other words, start with the thing you dread most, and the following obligations will feel far more pleasant."
"The idea has even inspired a best-selling self-help book from the 2000s. But does it actually work? It is only within the past few years that scientists have investigated the strategy, and they have found that "eating the frog" can be surprisingly powerful, boosting our satisfaction, motivation, and performance in the workplace, while helping us to begin our evenings feeling more refreshed. We just need to gird our stomachs and get on with it."
A centuries-old saying advises beginning the day by tackling the most unpleasant task first—'swallow a toad'—so later obligations feel less aversive. Recent scientific studies investigated that strategy and found that completing hardest tasks early can increase satisfaction, motivation, and workplace performance while improving evening refreshment. Many people mistakenly prefer starting with easy tasks to build confidence, but experiments show that those preferences are biased and often counterproductive. Laboratory tests asked participants to order and perform tasks of varying difficulty, revealing that tackling the hardest tasks first yields better outcomes than easing into work.
Read at Fast Company
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