Achieving competency and autonomy in one's life—in other words, being efficacious—is a fundamental human need. A commonly endorsed strategy for building efficacy is summarized by a popular quote: “If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing.” The current paper tests this “eat-the-frog-first” strategy, examining whether completing tasks in increasing-easiness order builds efficacy more than increasing-difficulty (or randomized) order. We propose that the eat-the-frog-first strategy does indeed enhance efficacy, but also that people will prefer the opposing order (preferring to complete more difficult tasks later) because they inaccurately believe that doing so will enhance their efficacy. Six experiments and one supplemental experiment (N = 2013) support these hypotheses. In Experiments 1a, 2a, and 3a (predicted efficacy experiments), people believed that completing tasks in increasing-difficulty (vs. increasing-easiness) order would enhance their efficacy, and hence preferred to complete tasks in increasing-difficulty order. But in corresponding Experiments 1b, 2b, and 3b (actual efficacy experiments), completing tasks in increasing-difficulty (vs. increasing-easiness or random) order reduced self-efficacy (or did not meaningfully change it; 3b). We provide evidence in a final study (Experiment 4) that this misunderstanding is due to people simulating the beginning of a sequence (e.g., the struggle of completing the most difficult task) more than the end (e.g., the ease of completing the simplest task). We conclude that people's tendency to delay the difficult incurs unexpected costs to self-worth. To build efficacy, people should start with their hardest task, even though doing so may violate intuition.

实现人生的能力和自主权（换句话说，有效）是人类的基本需求。流行的语录总结了一种普遍认可的提高功效的策略：“如果吃青蛙是你的工作，最好先做一件事。” 目前的论文测试了这种“先吃后吃”的策略，检查以递增的难度顺序完成任务是否比增加难度（或随机）次序更有效。我们建议先吃青蛙的策略确实可以提高功效，但是人们也倾向于相反的顺序（以后选择完成更困难的任务），因为他们不准确地认为这样做会提高功效。六个实验和一个补充实验（N = 2013）支持这些假设。在实验1a，2a和3a（预测的功效实验）中，人们认为以难度递增的顺序（相对于难度增加的顺序）完成任务会提高其功效，因此，他们倾向于以难度递增的顺序完成任务。但是在相应的实验1b，2b和3b（实际功效实验）中，以增加难度（相对于增加舒适性或随机性）的顺序完成任务会降低自我效能感（或无意义地改变自我效能感； 3b）。我们在最终研究（实验4）中提供了证据，这种误解是由于人们对序列的开始（例如，完成最困难任务的努力）的模拟比结束（例如，完成最简单任务的难易程度）更多）。我们得出结论，人们 延迟困难的趋势会给自我价值带来意想不到的成本。为了提高效率，人们应该从最艰巨的任务开始，尽管这样做可能会违反直觉。