Everyone knows the famous productivity advice: “Eat that frog.”
It comes from Brian Tracy’s book that says you should start your day by doing your most important, hardest task first. Once you finish that, everything else feels easier.
It’s great advice.
But it doesn’t solve the real problem.
Because the biggest challenge today isn’t workload.
It’s attention.
The Attention Deficit Problem
When Eat That Frog was written, the hardest thing about work was deciding what to do first.
Now, it’s staying focused long enough to do anything at all.
Every notification, Slack ping, and scroll through social media steals a piece of your mind.
You sit down to eat your frog, but your attention keeps buzzing around the room.
That’s not procrastination.
That’s distraction, and distraction has evolved.
Those distractions are what I call mosquitoes.
The Mosquito Problem
Mosquitoes are those small, noisy, recurring tasks that suck your time and energy.
They seem harmless, but they keep coming back.
A quick email.
A “small” message from your team.
A few minutes checking analytics or notifications.
Another internal update meeting that didn’t need to happen.
Each one takes a little bit of your focus, and leaves you a little more drained.
By the end of the day, the big, meaningful task (the frog) is still waiting.
You didn’t fail to eat the frog.
You just got bitten all day.
The Real Problem Isn’t Laziness, It’s Fragmentation
Eat That Frog assumes that willpower is the solution.
But when your attention is fragmented, no amount of willpower is enough.
You can’t focus on what matters when your day is full of mosquitoes.
And here’s the hard truth, most mosquitoes don’t even deserve your attention.
They just create the illusion of productivity.
Kill the Mosquito
Before you “eat the frog,” you have to kill the mosquitoes.
Otherwise, they’ll keep buzzing in your head all day.
At the end of each day, ask yourself:
- What drained my focus today?
- Which small things took more time than they should have?
- Can I delegate, automate, or delete them?
Some mosquitoes are part of your system, recurring meetings, reporting, quick approvals.
But most of them can be eliminated or handled once a week instead of every hour.
Killing the mosquito isn’t about working harder.
It’s about designing your day around focus, not noise.
Mosquito vs. Frog
Here’s how to tell them apart:
| Mosquito Tasks | Frog Tasks |
|---|---|
| Checking emails 20 times a day | Finalizing the new pricing strategy |
| Endless internal messages | Building your investor deck |
| Revising the same document repeatedly | Launching the new product campaign |
| Random sync meetings | Closing a key client deal |
| Scrolling LinkedIn “for inspiration” | Hiring the next leadership role |
| Micro-managing | Defining your next growth milestone |
Mosquitoes drain energy. Frogs move the company forward.
A Framework to Kill Mosquitoes
Here’s a simple framework founders can use to protect their focus and reclaim their day:
1. Weekly Personal Sprints
Pick 2–3 frogs for the week.
These are your core outcomes, not tasks, outcomes.
If you achieve them, the week counts as a win.
2. Daily Prioritization
Start each day by listing your frogs and mosquitoes.
Do the frogs first.
If you find yourself replying to Slack before noon, pause and ask, “Am I swatting mosquitoes instead of building momentum?”
3. Monthly Review
Look back at the past month.
Which mosquitoes keep coming back?
Automate or delegate them.
If they add no strategic value, eliminate them completely.
Why Killing Mosquitoes Works
Every mosquito you kill gives you back a bit of focus.
And that focus compounds.
Small distractions look harmless, but together they shape your decision-making and weaken your long-term clarity.
When you eliminate the noise, the bigger picture becomes visible again, the roadmap, the growth engine, the next leap.
Killing mosquitoes doesn’t make you ruthless.
It makes you effective.
Final Thought
Productivity isn’t just about finishing tasks.
It’s about defending your focus.
So yes, eat the frog.
But first, kill the mosquitoes.
Design your day to protect your attention, the most valuable asset in the AI era.
Because no one scales by swatting all day.
For Founders
If you’re a founder struggling to prioritize marketing or growth activities, if you find yourself swatting small fires instead of building real systems, delegate them.
Hire me as your Fractional CMO.
I’ll help you focus on what truly moves the business forward, while I handle the distractions that don’t.
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