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You open your task list.
There it is.
The difficult proposal.
The complicated decision.
The project you’ve been avoiding.
You know the advice:
“Eat the frog. Do the hardest thing first.”
So you try.
Some days, finishing that task makes everything afterward feel lighter.
Other days, you struggle to begin and wonder whether a different starting point would help.
What does the research actually say?
TASK ORDER CAN CHANGE HOW YOUR DAY FEELS.
A 2025 paper in Personnel Psychology examined task difficulty and workday sequencing in two field studies.
Working through harder tasks earlier and easier ones later was associated with less fatigue and greater mental relaxation at the end of the day.
But the findings also contained a useful detail.
The improvement in perceived progress was less pronounced for people who typically spread their effort evenly or concentrated it later.
The same sequence didn’t benefit everyone equally.
That gives you a reason to examine how you arrange your work.
TRY THE ADVICE. OBSERVE THE RESULT.
Here’s a personal experiment for this week.
On one day, begin directly with your most demanding task.
On another comparable day, complete one clearly defined, easier task first. Give it a 15-minute limit, then move to the demanding work.
That limit matters: a warm-up can easily become a morning of avoiding the task you intended to tackle.
Compare three things:
How soon did meaningful work begin?
What useful output did you produce?
How much energy remained afterward?
This won’t establish a scientific rule about you. It can give you a better question to investigate.
Perhaps difficult-first helps you feel relieved and make progress.
Perhaps a brief warm-up helps you engage.
Either way, judge the sequence by what happens after you begin.
A productive morning should leave evidence in your work.
Use that evidence to shape tomorrow’s starting point.
– Maxim
Reach Your Next LVL
P.S. Thank you for reading. I appreciate the time you give these words.
P.P.S. On Wednesday: Your reminder goes off, but you can’t act on it. How much does the timing of a reminder matter?
Yes, that Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He has a newsletter on beehiiv. So do Codie Sanchez, Jay Shetty, David Begnaud, Colin & Samir, and Joanna Stern.
They could publish just about anywhere. They chose beehiiv to build a direct connection with the people who want to hear from them most. And you can do the same, whether you’re world-famous or just at the start of your plan for world domination.