Eat That Frog!

Yes, you read that title correctly. 

Brian Tracy’s book “Eat That Frog!” is about managing time and being more productive by eating the biggest and ugliest frog first. 

While there will never be enough time to accomplish everything, Brian Tracy says we need to be selective and choose the most important task at any given moment. The main idea is to get started, get it done quickly, and get it done well.

Here are a few highlights from the 21 ideas offered in the book: 

Plan Your Work And Work Your Plan 

Setting goals, making plans, and taking action on those plans will determine the direction of your life. Creating plans will also prevent you from procrastinating.

Speaking from experience, anytime I set a goal without written plans, I ultimately move on to something else and forget about that “goal.“ 

Planning your work helps create the difference between a dream and a goal.

The best way to get started is to plan each day in advance with step-by-step tasks that need to be completed to work towards a larger goal. For example, write down your major goals in order of importance and then break each one down into bite-size steps.

Brian Tracy stresses the importance of thinking on paper and always working from a list. Writing things down and seeing them on paper creates a definite purpose that helps move us forward.

What Are The Consequences?

Whenever you decide to do something (or not do something), you should be able to accurately predict what the consequences will be. It is important to remember that thinking in the long term will help your short-term decision-making process.

If you want to do what successful people do, create a clear future for yourself 5, 10, and 20 years out. Clarity will help you focus on the most important tasks to complete now. In other words, it will help you determine which frog to eat first.

A great way to get started with creating clarity is to ask yourself what your highest value activities are? Is your biggest contribution to your family, organization, or your life in general?

Any action you take means giving up the opportunity for a different activity, so choose wisely.

Slicing And Dicing

Procrastination has always been a problem for me when a task seems too large and overwhelming to complete. 

Cutting a goal down into a step-by-step process has been one of the most life-changing ideas for me. For example, whenever I write one of the blogs that you see here, I break it down into sections and write the most important paragraph first, then continue from there. Before I know it, the task is complete in a very short time.

Brian Tracy refers to it as slicing salami or poking holes in Swiss cheese. 

It would help if you focused on doing one thing at a time until the task is complete. Another good idea is to set a time limit on how long you work on a task before taking a break. Set the time limit to 10, 30, or 60 minutes.

This has made life so much easier for me.

If you feel stuck in life, this book will help you develop some habits of success.

There are times when we all procrastinate, but having the right tools will help us progress and be more successful. Remember, you decide what success looks like. 

I hope this book of the week review has provided some value to you. As always, thanks for reading!

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