EAT THE BROCCOLI FIRST

I recently had dinner at the house of some friends and found myself seated next to their nine year old daughter.

The dinner consisted of chicken, baked potato and broccoli. I couldn’t help noticing that the nine year old ate all her broccoli first and ate it an extremely fast pace, almost shoveling it into her mouth.

I commented to the child, “Wow, you must really love broccoli.” She responded, “No! I hate it – but I love the rest of the dinner so I know if I eat all the broccoli first and get it ‘out of the way,’ I can relax and really enjoy the rest of the meal.”

As business people, we are often faced with the same situation of that little girl. We have something unpleasant or distasteful that is sitting on our desks. We look at it, think about it, become disgusted (perhaps even depressed) and find a way to put it off until “later.” When “later” arrives, we look at it again, think about it again, become depressed again, and put it off again. Sometimes we even hide it to avoid looking at it again. But, we know that it really won’t go away so we put it on tomorrow’s “to do” list.

Wouldn’t it be easier and far less unpleasant to get rid of it, to get it done, to get it off of the desk and out of our minds?

It is indeed a huge time-saver to begin each day by starting off with the most unpleasant job on your “to do” list. Once it’s done you’ll have the rest of the day to do the things you really want or have to do. You’ll no longer waste time by thinking and worrying about that unpleasant task. You’ll feel better, think better and at night, you’ll even sleep better.

Eat the broccoli first and eat it first every day. It might not even be as distasteful as it appears. Either way, get it out of the way so that you can enjoy the rest of the meal.