Frogs, butterflies and productivity

Posted on May 21, 2007 by LJ

The article Watch out for the frogs! came across my blog reader recently, and I was very taken with it. I’ve always heard the saying “Eat a frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day,” and it struck me as funny but true.

In this article, WOWNDADI takes this concept a step further and puts tasks into quadrants, and then assigns them to easy-to-remember objects:

  • Things you don’t want to do, but don’t need to do = GNATS
  • Things you don’t want to do, but need to do = FROGS
  • Things you want to do and need to do = GEMS
  • Things you want to do but don’t need to = BUTTERFLIES

I love the mnemonics of this: squash the gnats, eat the frogs, and stop chasing butterflies in your pursuit of the gems.

What a great take on productivity!

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    Comments (2)

     

    1. Frogs, Gnats, Butterflies and Gems. « WOWNDADI says:
      June 30, 2007 at 4:43 am

      [...] The Simple Productivity blog – it is simple and is about productivity, very neat. [...]

    2. WOWNDADI - Communication Productivity and Leadership » Blog Archive » Frogs, Gnats, Butterflies and Gems. says:
      September 15, 2007 at 6:58 am

      [...] The Simple Productivity blog – it is simple and is about productivity, very neat. [...]