I love that you quoted the Phantom Tollbooth.
"If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you’ll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult."
That's the organizing hierarchy I use to schedule my day. Doing the most important thing first means I feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, no matter what else I did not get through. It works better than "I'll do this one thing real quick" or the easiest/hardest first, or even the one that is due the soonest.