Schedule.
Eat that frog for students.
In Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy addresses the issue of too much to do with too little time to do it. The first of his five key themes are preparation.
It has been said that the first thing you should do in the morning is eat that frog to avoid procrastination. However, I must say that as a mum eating that frog is not enough.
“Start with the end in mind,”
—Stephen Covey
As in golf, visualizing the shot from start to finish is not enough. Many golfers visualize their shot before they hit it. And that's good.
The problem is most golfers don't visualize what's going to happen after the ball hits the target. Most of us know that the golf ball doesn't typically just hit the target and stay in place. Usually it bounces, spins, rolls out or even backs up. That's why, just like a golfer, it is crucial to visualize the shot from start to finish (when the ball actually stops). As a student, visualizing yourself in the process of reading the topic, understanding the information, finishing that unit and retrieving the answer of the exercises correctly. It is crucial.
“You can't hit a target you cannot see, and you cannot see a target you do not have.”
—Zig Ziglar
Visualize yourself feeling proud for finishing or having taken another small step in the right direction. That is the “perfect end.”
The idea is not only to get up early to eat that frog but that the whole process is finished, and you finished it correctly.
The night before, if I have read the title and subtitles, seen the graphs and read the exercises that normally appear after each unit of the Cambridge self-study books, I will know that in the morning my brain has already been “warmed and warned” of exactly what I am going to do.
The goal is to finish the entire unit, but I’ll visualize myself raising my arms and feeling happy that I accomplished it. The goal is not “to get up early to study.” The goal is to have done 100% of what you set out to do in that study session, which will allow you to continue the next day with the next step towards your sure triumph.
In Atomic Habits, James Clear shares with us a chapter called “The Secret of Self-Control.”
One of his lines says, “to put it bluntly, I have never seen someone consistently stick to a positive habit in a negative environment.” One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it.
This book chapter helped reinforce to me the importance of getting ready to eat that frog in the morning.
For me, a negative environment is a desk that is tidy but full of closed books, with information unknown to me yet that I must learn. I have no idea what page they are on, how many paragraphs they have, how they are explained, or worse still, what technique I will use to capture the most relevant information of that chapter.
Have you ever gone into the clean and tidy kitchen, opened your refrigerator and thought, what recipe shall I cook? What shall I prepare? The French have a technique called “mise in place.” It is the habit of having all your ingredients measured, cut, peeled, sliced, grated, etc. before you start cooking.
My "mise en place" for studying begins with writing down my main goal: For me, this is, on August 25, 2022, sitting at the table of a beautiful restaurant and toasting joyously, celebrating my Cambridge Proficiency Certificate with my whole family very proud of me.
I write down my main goal for the next day on my bedside table and I go to bed thinking about it. Then I can then get up in the morning, sit in front of my desk and find the books already prepared, open in the chapters that I must read, highlighted, with my notebook ready alongside my favourite mechanical pencil.
This is me 100% eating that frog effectively. I like to wake up and find everything ready.
Before I tell you why I became so cautious, I would like to share with you one of my favourite sayings that I apply to many everyday situations: “Less is more when more is too much.”
In my college years, getting up early and deciding to study first was good enough.
But now that I'm a mum, a lot of surprises can happen in the middle of the night or very early in the morning that change 90, 100 or even 110% of my plans.
I am talking particularly about incidents that affect my sleeping hours and therefore when I wake up my mind is not ready enough to absorb the content that needs to be studied.
An incentive for this very likely motherly circumstance is, as my grandfather used to say, “put your finger on the sore spot and do not move it from there.”
If I’ve written a note next to my bedside table with the particular topic that I am going to study the next day, I’ll go to bed thinking about it. So, whether my kids had a fever in the middle of the night, or a ghost is hiding under their beds, when I wake up, my mind is still ready to eat that frog. And even if I don't eat it sitting at my desk, the command that I give to my brain the night before is so clear that I’ll always manage to find some point during the day to be able to take that small step in the right direction.
Do not underestimate the “just in case” scenarios. My life is full of those, so they make my life easier. They make me very happy because they work! So, I highly recommend it to you too.