Eat That Frog - A Good Read!

In my life, one thing I tried to keep constant is to never leave the habit of reading.

"Reading is to the mind,as exercise to the body" - Brian Tracy

This article is about my recent read.The book evolves around how to be more organized and productive.

?Both the book and the method get their names from a quote usually attributed to Mark Twain (though whether Twain actually said/wrote it has been debated ): "Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day."

?Eat that Frog - it’s a metaphor Tracy had explained for tracking the most challenging task which have a greater impact.

While the core methodology of “Eat that Frog” sounds simple, it actually requires you to conduct a series of activities and develop several habits before you can succeed with the approach.

?In this book, Tracy describes each of those activities and habits as the 21 core principles of the Eat That Frog method.

?1.????Set the Table (Define your goals and write them down)

? Tracy says that lack of clarity is one of the biggest causes of waste and procrastination.

?If you don't know exactly what your goals are—what you're striving to achieve—it's unlikely that you'll be able to identify and prioritize the specific tasks you need to work on to achieve those goals.

?Being clear about your goals is one of the most effective ways of increasing your productivity and efficiency. If you can establish clear objectives and not deviate from them, you will instantly improve your productivity.?

• ?Organize your list of sub-tasks into a plan. This plan should consider the order in which you will complete the tasks. Plus, you should create a visual depiction of this plan.
• Take action on your plan immediately.
• Do something daily that is moving you toward your ultimate goals. Build these goals into your daily schedule.

?2.????Plan Daily in Advance

???“Every minute spent in planning saves as many as ten minutes in execution.”

– Brian Tracy

?This I myself very much realized in my day to day work. There was a time when I used to struggle a lot to keep track of my multiple assignments. And as a Product Manager I need to handle multiple timelines for different products, keep things organized before different stakeholder meetings etc.

?So, I started my morning routine with listing down all to-do work for the day, before even I start working. Then prioritize top 5 items and try to complete and when I can do it believe me, it gives me a whole sense of accomplishments. I also mark/strike out those items from my to-do list.

??3.????Apply the 80/20 Rule

?Tracy suggested to remove the temptation to clear smallest things first instead pick up the 20 percent work which will value for 80 percent work.

?“Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.”

?4.????Consider The Consequences of Your Tasks

?Long-term thinking improves short-term decision making.

?In your work, having a clear idea of what is really important to you in the long term makes it much easier for you to make better decisions about your priorities in the short term.

?Before starting on anything, you should always ask yourself, ‘What are the potential consequences of doing or not doing this task?

?Thinking continually about the potential consequences of your choices, decisions, and behaviors is one of the very best ways to determine your true priorities in your work and personal life.

?5.????Procrastinate on purpose

?The difference between high performers and low performers is largely determined by what they choose to procrastinate on.

?Continually review your life and work to find time-consuming tasks and activities that you can abandon. Cut down on television watching and instead spend the time with your family, read, exercise, or do something else that enhances the quality of your life.

?Look at your work activities and identify the tasks that you could delegate or eliminate to free up more time for the work that really counts.

?6.????Use the ABCDE method

You start with a list of everything you have to do for the coming day. Think on paper. You then place an A, B, C, D, or E next to each item on your list before you begin the first task.

• ?An ‘A’ item is defined as something that is very important, something that you must do. This is a task that will have serious positive or negative consequences if you do it or fail to do it, like visiting a key customer or finishing a report that your boss needs for an upcoming board meeting.
• ?A ‘B’ item is defined as a task that you should do.
• ??The rule is that you should never do a B task when an A task is left undone.
• ?A ‘C’ task is defined as something that would be nice to do but for which there are no consequences at all, whether you do it or not.
• A ‘D’ task is defined as something you can delegate to someone else.
• An ‘E’ task is defined as something that you can eliminate altogether, and it won’t make any real difference.

?7.????Understand exactly what work you're accountable for

?Brian Tracy describes key result areas are the areas of work that you are entirely responsible. Hence, if you do not do this work, then it won’t get done. Also, the output of these tasks is crucial for the input of other people’s tasks. Therefore, these work areas are crucial for you and your team to work efficiently.?

?8.????When it's time to work, work(Obey the Law of Forced Efficiency)

?“There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.” – Brian Tracy?

?You can’t eat every tadpole and frog in the pond. However, it is plausible to ensure that you eat the biggest and ugliest frog within the pond. Notably, Brian Tracy believes that doing this should be enough for you to be successful.?

?9.????Prepare for your work before you start on it

?Brian’s personal rule is “Get it 80 percent right and then correct it later.”

??10. Focus on one task at a time

?Get your mind off the huge task in front of you and focus on a single action that you can take. - One at a time!!

?11. Develop your skills

?You are a unique individual who has special talents and abilities that nobody else who has ever lived possesses.

?Therefore, this means certain things you can do or learn to do will make you extremely valuable. You must learn to identify your areas of uniqueness and then commit to specializing within these areas.?

?12. Use your strengths

?Your job is to clearly identify the constraints you have to overcome to achieve your primary goal. Ask yourself the following questions to help you identify your key constraints:

• What is holding you back?
• What sets the speed at which you achieve your goals?
• What determines how fast you move from where you are to where you want to go?
• What stops you or holds you back from eating the frogs that can make a difference?
• Why aren’t you at your goal already?

?After identifying your most important goal, you should consider the limiting factor. This is the factor that sets the speed at which you achieve your most important goal. After identifying this limiting factor, you should put all your efforts into removing this limiting factor.

?13. Put the pressure on yourself

?To reach your full potential, you must form the habit of putting the pressure on yourself and not waiting for someone else to come along and do it for you.

Work as though you have only one day to get your most important jobs done.

??14. Find your motivation

?Personal performance and productivity are created through physical, mental, and emotional energies.

?Brian Tracy describes your body as being like a machine. Your body uses food, water, and rest to generate energy. This energy is crucial for you to accomplish your most important tasks. This is why we can be two or three times more productive when we are well-rested, hydrated, and fed.?

?15. Make the most of your energy levels

?Tracy says that another way to be your most productive is to "guard and nurture your energy levels."

?Working too-long hours, failing to get enough sleep, eating unhealthy foods, and forgoing exercise are all ways we deplete our energy reserves, and as a result, our productivity suffers.

?16. Become an optimist

?Another way to motivate yourself to eat your frogs and meet your goals is to control your thoughts. Instead of letting negativity slip in and derail your plans, Tracy says you must "refuse to let the unavoidable difficulties and setbacks of daily life affect your mood and emotions."

?If your personality trends more toward pessimist than optimism, you may be rolling your eyes at this principle. In that case, it helps to think of it less as "being a cheerleader" and "seeing the good in every situation" and more as overcoming the negative thoughts and skepticisms that prevent you from moving forward.

?17. Don't let technology distract you

?Technology is designed to make you more productive, but if you use it incorrectly, it has the opposite effect.

?If it feels like you spend your days hopscotching through emails, instant messages, and phone notifications instead of accomplishing important tasks, it's time to reset and rethink how you're using technology.

?18. Break your tasks down

After you defined your goals, you broke those goals down into actionable tasks. But Tracy recommends taking it a step further and breaking your tasks down into the smallest possible components. The smaller the task, the easier it will be to start and complete because you'll be less overwhelmed by the idea of jumping into the task.

As an example, let's say your goal is to make $20,000 more this year. To do that, you'll have to find a new job. One task you need to complete is to update LinkedIn profile, but it needs a lot of work. Instead of having the task "update LinkedIn profile" on your to-do list, break that down into smaller tasks.

Then, your to-do list will be filled with smaller, more manageable tasks like "write a summary for my LinkedIn profile," "ask coworkers for recommendations," and "document my responsibilities and accomplishments for my current role."

?19. Schedule time on your calendar for eating your frogs

?Your ability to carve out and use these blocks of high-value, highly productive time is central to your ability to make a significant contribution to your work and to your life.

?Make work appointments with yourself and then discipline yourself to keep them. Set aside thirty-, sixty- and ninety-minute time segments that you use to work on and complete important tasks.

?20. Find your flow

?Flow is an optimal productivity state where you're fully immersed in and focused on the task at hand—so much so that you barely notice the passing of time.

??21. Work on a task until it's complete

?After you start working on a frog, continue working on it until it's complete. When you stop working on a task to focus on something else, it increases the amount of time it will take you to complete your original task.

?So once you've selected a task and have started working on it, work on it until you can take it off of your to-do list.

?To do this effectively, you'll need to make sure you have tasks that are small enough to complete in one sitting. You'll need to make sure you have time blocked to work on your task. And finally, you'll need to make sure you've correctly estimated the time it will take you to complete the task.

?These 21 principles make the Eat That Frog productivity method sound like a lot of work, the approach is pretty simple:

• ?Define your goals and write them down.
• Break those goals down into tasks.
• Break those tasks down into the smallest possible subtasks.
• Prioritize your tasks, and delete/delegate tasks you don't need to do.
• Schedule time on your calendar every single day, ideally first thing in the morning, to work on your highest-priority goal task.
• Focus on your goal task during your scheduled time, and work on it until it's complete.

Your goal tasks and their sub-tasks are each your frogs—the things you want to "eat" first thing every day to ensure you stay focused on completing your most impactful work.

??"Make a decision to practice these principles every day until they become second nature to you," Tracy says. "With these habits of personal management as a permanent part of your personality, your future success will be unlimited."

?REFERENCES:

• https://zapier.com/blog/eat-that-frog/
• https://www.getstoryshots.com/books/eat-that-frog-summary/
• https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/book-summaries/business/eat-that-frog/