Here’s a common challenge we all face at work: There are two very urgent and difficult tasks in front of you, how should you choose? A newcomer in the workplace would usually get themselves in a knot while working on two tasks at the same time. But this is not very efficient. When doing one task, you worry about the progress of the other one. As a result, you can do neither tasks well. So, what is the correct approach? It is very simple. To complete both tasks quickly, you have to deal with the more difficult and arduous task first, complete it and then do the other.

But there aren’t always just two urgent tasks at your work each day. You may arrive at work in the morning and have multiple tasks to be done, each with different urgency. Then how do you choose? Time management guru Brian Tracy offers us a tip: eat the ugliest frog first.

What does it mean? Here, the frog is the most difficult and important task for you. "Eating this frog" is to complete the most important and difficult task. As American writer Mark Twain once said, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” If there are two, eat the uglier one first.