One Frog Down

Last night we had a really great Bishop's Youth Fireside in our family room. The speaker was assigned the topic of "Time Management", which is important (especially at back-to-school time), but could also be a bit dry (boring?) for teenagers. Happily, I felt that our speaker nailed it! Here is one great example that he shared ... see if you can guess what it might have to do with managing time, and with the photo above.

A friend of the speaker's works in an office. As soon as the friend gets to work each morning, he checks to see if there is a frog (or frogs) on his desk. If there is (are), he gobbles it (them) down as quickly as possible. They may be squirmy, slimy, leggy, and gross, but down-the-hatch they go without a second thought.

Our speaker's reply when his friend shared this was, "Ooooo--kay, that's a little weird. What in the world does that have to do with managing your day?"

The friend explained that every day he has unpleasant or large or complicated or pesky things that are on his To Do list. By approaching these "frogs" head on and tackling them FIRST THING without procrastinating, he is free to continue through his day with the satisfaction of knowing that the most important tasks were already accomplished.

I loved that silly little analogy, and realized that my husband and I had approached last Saturday in the same way. After we got our daughter off to the Bishops' Storehouse to work for the morning with some young women from the ward, we put on our "grubbies", clipped the Doodle to his extra-long leash, and trudged out to the front yard. After a wonderful but busy summer, our yard was overgrown and screaming for attention.

I do not enjoy the thought of doing yard work, and last Saturday was no exception. I may have even grumbled as I was gathering tools from the garage. But once we hit our gardening groove, it, of course, started to feel good. Before long, trees were trimmed, bushes had long overdue haircuts, the beds were weeded, all the debris was shoved into recycling bins, and the walks were blown clean. In an hour and a half we had powered through our little front yard, and it looked like respectable people lived there again.

One of the fun parts of being out in the yard on a sunny Saturday morning is being neighborly:

1. One man pulled his shiny truck over to our curb and chatted us up, asking about our day ahead and our opinions on the upcoming presidential election. The three of us laughed like old friends. When he pulled away, I asked my husband who (in the heck) that was. He laughed and told me, and I was embarrassed to realize that I had shared the same street with that man for ten years, and I had never before seen him. My husband is obviously more neighborly than I am!

2. Barb from next door returned from a walk and offered us her empty recycling bin ... she could see that we had many more clippings than we had planned! So thoughtful, and much appreciated! Barb had obviously forgiven me for nearly running over her husband Bob as I was backing out of my driveway a few weeks ago. Thanks, Barb!

3. Wonderful Fred, a recently retired Presbyterian minister, zipped past on his bike with a "Hullo!" and a big friendly wave. It's fun to be a neighbor, I thought! Cheesey? Yes! But also true.

Later that afternoon, after a couple of Advil for my pathetically sore muscles, my husband and I admired our work from inside the house, and then again as we were driving off to our daughter's soccer game. Getting the yard ship-shape in the early morning made us feel accomplished for the rest of the day. Yep, gobbling a frog ... mmmm, delicious!