Frogs, cats and boiling pots

THREE NEAT THINGS

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ISSUE 030 | 28 February 2023

Hi friends! 

I tried to eat the frog this week, I really did. I did a slightly different method to what's outlined below - I mentally gathered up all the crappy admin tasks I'd been putting off (booking a dentist appointment because i couldn’t decide which of the two shitty options i had been given was less evil, swapping the house insurance because it now excluded running a business i.e. me on a laptop?!, and did that mean that if the house burnt down while I was charging a camera battery, was that a business use, booking the dog in for a dental clean, but I don't want to because what if he dies on the table, etc etc). I then set myself an hour at the beginning of the next workday, and was intent on ticking them all off and clearing my brain of this tedium.  

But I failed. The problem was that I use google calendars, and it was just too easy to move that ‘eat the frog’ hour to another day. And another day. It's currently sitting scheduled in for tomorrow morning, and I'm sure I'll get to it then. 

Marnie x

1

Why you should lock your cat up at night

Roaming pet cats kill 390 million animals per year in Australia, including reptiles, birds and mammals. That's an average of 186 animals, mostly native species, per roaming domestic cat each year.

Cats have played a leading role in most of Australia’s 34 mammal extinctions since 1788, and are a big reason populations of at least 123 other threatened native species are dropping.

2

Cooking without gas

I just bought two plug in induction cooktops (from Ikea of all places, thanks to the multiple recommendations in the My Energy Efficient Home facebook brains trust about this $69 model). I couldn't quite face the task of removing my gas top cooker and replacing it (as we will hopefully be living in an all electric passivhaus in a couple of years). I'll probably still do it before we sell, but in the meantime I'm having a taste of induction, and I love it so far!  

Read the article below about why chefs are switching to induction rather than gas, and it's not just for the health benefits. 

3

Eat the frog

“If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.”

Productivity consultant Brain Tracy named the Eat The Frog method after this vivid piece of advice from Mark Twain. While there’s more power and nuance to this method than meets the eye, it all boils down to this - identify one important task for the day and do it first.