3 Keys for High-Performing Leaders: AM & PM Habits and Frog Time

Most leaders do not lose their day because they lack effort. They lose their day because urgency quietly takes over. 

What starts as one quick ask turns into five. A “two-minute review” becomes twenty. Someone stops by. An email pulls attention. By mid-morning, the day is no longer yours. You are moving fast, but you are moving inside everyone else’s priorities.

Over time, this creates a pattern. The day feels full. Work is happening. But the important work keeps getting pushed. It moves to later in the day when it is finally quiet. Work runs late. Deadlines slip. Language shifts to “I am so busy,” which often masks that the day is being managed by urgency instead of being led with intention. That is not a capacity issue. It is a structure issue. You end up circling, more than strategically progressing on priorities and important work. When urgency runs the day, you stay active but not effective. When you do not manage your day, your day manages you. And over time, that shows up in delays, bottlenecks, and work that never quite gets ahead. 

1. AM Habits: Start the Day Before It Starts Pulling You
If the day begins in email or conversation, it begins in reaction. That means you are stepping into other people’s priorities before you have set your own.

AM habits create a short, consistent entry point into the day. This is not about adding time. It is about positioning. You are deciding what matters before the noise begins.

There is also a performance component here. When you follow the same sequence each morning, your brain engages faster. You are not deciding how to start. You are stepping into a pattern that is already familiar.

 Use 10–30 minutes to set direction:

• • Environment: Settle in. Clear workspace. Start clean so you are not entering scattered
• • Direction: Review goals, priorities, and your calendar through a leadership lens
• • Mindset: Read or listen to something that grounds your posture for the day
• • Team Tone: Send a quick note, focus, or encouragement to your team
• • Intentional Entry: Move into email after you are clear, not before

What this prevents:

• • Immediate Reaction Mode: Letting the inbox or others decide your priorities
• • Drift: Moving through the day without a clear anchor
• • Energy Loss: Spending mental effort deciding what to do instead of doing it
• This is where the day starts to become yours. 

 2. Frog Time: Remove the Work That Is Slowing Everything Down
Frog Time, from Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog, is not just about important work. It is about avoided work.

A frog is the item that sits on your list for days. You do not enjoy it. You keep pushing it. It might be administrative, financial, a follow-up, or a conversation. It is the “toilet scrubbing” work that does not get done.

The issue is not the task itself. It is the drag it creates.

When frogs sit, they create weight. They delay progress. They often make you the bottleneck. And they are one of the main reasons work gets pushed to late at night.

What defines a Frog:

• • Avoided: It stays on your list longer than it should
• • Uncomfortable: You naturally delay it
• • Lingering: It creates mental weight by being unfinished
• • Blocking: Others may be waiting on it, or it slows the next step

How to approach Frog Time:

• • Do It Early: Many leaders handle frogs at the start of the day to remove the weight
• • Or Schedule It: Some do it later, but it must be planned, not avoided
• • Do Not Let Them Stack: Multiple frogs compound the drag
• • Move It Forward: Completion or clear progress removes the mental load

 What changes when you do this:

• • Energy Increases: You feel immediate lift once it is done
• • Execution Improves: Other work moves faster without the weight
• • Delays Reduce: You are no longer the bottleneck holding things up

When frogs are handled consistently, you stop pushing meaningful work into nights and weekends just to catch up.

 3. PM Habits: Close the Day So It Does Not Follow You
Most leaders end their day by stopping, not by closing. That leaves open loops, unfinished thoughts, and mental clutter that carries into the next day.

PM habits solve that by creating a clean transition.

There is also a neuroscience benefit. When you capture and organize your work before you end the day, your brain continues processing it while you are not working. You are essentially preparing tomorrow without additional effort.

Use the last 30 minutes to reset:

• • Capture: Update your to-do list and get everything out of your head
• • Review: Notice what got done and what did not
• • Plan Ahead: Look at tomorrow and identify pressure points
• • Prepare: Set up what you need so you are not starting cold
• • Clear Space: Reset your desk and close open loops

Why this matters:

• • Mental Clarity: You are not carrying unfinished work into the next day
• • Overnight Processing: Your brain begins organizing and prioritizing while you rest
• • Reduced Friction: You start the next day ready instead of reacting

Even something as simple as a clear desk matters. While some people feel comfortable working in piles, the reality is that clutter divides attention and slows focus. A clean environment supports faster thinking and execution.

 How This Works Together

This is one system, not three separate ideas. AM habits signal your brain and set direction. Frog Time removes the work you avoid and clears bottlenecks. PM habits close the day and prepare the next one. This is how the shift happens. You move from urgency shaping your day to you directing your day, from carrying unfinished work to completing and progressing, and from circling tasks to actually moving them forward.

Where to Start and How to Implement
Start simple and just get something in place.

List 3–7 things you want in your AM routine and 3–7 things in your PM routine. Keep them in the same order each day. The order is what matters. From a neuroscience standpoint, your brain starts to recognize that sequence as one pattern instead of multiple things to think through, so you engage faster without having to work as hard to get going.

Write it down and print it. Set a time you are going to do it each weekday. Weekends or non-workdays can be off. The consistency is what allows it to work. This is where habit stacking starts to take effect and you begin to feel the difference in how you move through your day.

It is okay to adjust your habits, but more in a development way than a random way. Set it, try it, and then intentionally refine it. When it is constantly changing, your brain never settles into it and it stays effortful.

With Frog Time, you want to be clear that you are not just working your to-do list. Most people think that is what it is and that is why it does not work. We naturally reach for what is easier, so if you open your list you will move toward lower-effort items instead of the ones that actually need to get done.

So instead, identify 5–7 types of frogs. Finance, admin work, data entry, running reports, follow-ups, phone calls. The things you tend to put off. That way when you go into Frog Time, you already know what you are looking for and you are not deciding in the moment.

This is a place to start. These three pieces begin to shift how your day is running. The next step from here is block planning, where you take your habits and your frogs and actually map them into your day, but this is the foundation that makes that work.

Leadership Reminders

• • Urgency will always exist. It does not need to lead
• • Avoided work is often what slows everything else down
• • Structure is not restrictive. It increases speed and clarity
• • Your habits determine your team’s habits

Reflection

• What is currently sitting on your list that has become a frog?
• Where is avoided work creating drag in your day?
• What would change if you consistently cleared that first?
• Where would more structure actually increase your speed?