Concept
Plan tomorrow tonight
Planning tomorrow tonight is Tracy's rule that the next day's list, with the frog marked, is written the evening before, because deciding what to do is itself work, and a morning that begins with a decision begins with an opportunity to avoid.
The first minutes of a working day are where procrastination is decided. A person who sits down without a list has to choose, and choosing is exactly the moment when the inbox, the news and the small tasks present themselves as reasonable. A list written the night before, by a calmer self with the whole day in view, turns the morning into an instruction: this first, then this. Tracy pairs it with preparing the desk so the frog is the first thing seen. Cal Newport's shutdown ritual is the same practice with a name: the day ends by planning the next one, which is also what lets the evening be free. The list does not have to be elaborate; it has to name the frog and be visible when you sit down.
A real-life example
A product manager in Istanbul writes the next day's list at six every evening and marks the frog. Her mornings, which used to begin with forty minutes of email while she decided what mattered, begin with the roadmap document already open.
How to use it
- 1Write tomorrow's list before you close the day, and mark the frog.
- 2Set the desk so the frog is the first thing you see in the morning.
- 3Keep the list short: the frog, then the next one or two.