If you’ve ever followed Brian Tracy’s “Eat That Frog” productivity method, you know the rule: complete the hardest task first. According to new research from the Wisconsin School of Business, ignoring this advice doesn’t just delay difficult work, it can degrade the quality of the result.
In the high-stakes field of auditing, where professionals verify the financial health of corporations, the order in which tasks are completed matters as much as the tasks themselves. A new study coauthored by Christian Peters, assistant professor of accounting, and Bart Dierynck, Tilburg University, reveals that the common, seemingly harmless habit of starting with quick wins can undermine performance on the work that matters most.
The Pull of Quick Wins
Auditors often manage long checklists. Some tasks are routine like auditing cash balances, while others require intense mental energy and critical judgment like auditing complex accounting estimates.
Peters and Dierynck studied more than 350 professional auditors and found a clear pattern: when given the choice, auditors instinctively reach for the easy tasks first. This tendency becomes even more pronounced during busy season, when tight deadlines and high pressure are the norm.
While checking off small items feels productive, Peters suggests it creates a cognitive drain. By the time an auditor reaches the most complex, high-risk part of the assignment, their mental batteries are depleted. As a result, their performance on these critical judgments suffers.
“Professional judgment isn’t just about what you decide,” Peters says. “It’s also about when you decide it. If teams default to ‘easy first’ under pressure, they can unintentionally weaken the quality of judgments on the hardest, highest-risk work.”
Does Psychological Ownership Change the Pattern?
The research team tested whether a sense of psychological ownership—the feeling that a project truly belongs to an individual—could correct the problem. Perhaps if an auditor felt personally invested and felt more in control, they would resist the urge to prioritize easy tasks under pressure.
However, the study found no evidence that ownership solved the issue. When the clock is ticking, the human instinct to secure a “win” by finishing something simple often overrides the benefit of tackling the hardest problems first.
Rethinking the To-Do List
Improving audit quality is often discussed in terms of pricey, new technology or complex regulatory standards. This research points to a much simpler, budget-friendly fix: intentional workflow design.
“This is not a call for longer audits or bigger budgets,” Peters says. “It’s about making task sequencing a deliberate planning topic. Teams improve outcomes when they tackle complex tasks while they still have the cognitive resources to do them properly.”
The Bottom Line for Auditors
For the industry, the study offers a roadmap for navigating the high-pressure busy season:
- For audit firms: Don’t leave the schedule to chance. Engagement leaders should strategically load cognitively demanding work, ensuring the hardest judgments are made when mental energy is at its highest.
- For boards and regulators: The study adds a new lens to the conversation around deadline pressure. It’s not just about whether auditors have enough time, but whether they have the mental energy to exercise strong judgment when it matters most.
Sometimes the most powerful improvement isn’t a new tool or regulation. It’s just doing the hard work first.
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