Eat That Frog 

Brian Tracy 
 

Book Overview from the Publisher 

There  just  isn’t  enough  time  for  everything  on  our  to-do  list—and  there  never will be. Successful people 
don’t  try  to  do  everything.  They  learn  to  focus  on  the  most  important  tasks  and  make  sure  those  get 
done. They eat their frogs. 
 
There’s  an  old  saying  that  if  the  first  thing  you  do  each  morning  is  eat  a  live  frog,  you’ll  have  the 
satisfaction  of  knowing you’re done with the worst thing you’ll have to do all day. For Tracy, eating a frog 
is  a  metaphor  for  tackling  your  most  challenging  task—but  also  the  one  that  can  have  the  greatest 
positive  impact  on  your  life.  ​Eat  That  Frog!  shows  you  how  to  organize  each  day  so  you  can  zero  in  on 
these critical tasks and accomplish them efficiently and effectively. 
 
This life-changing book will ensure that you get more of your important tasks done—today! 
 

KEY POINTS COVERED IN THIS SUMMARY: 

1. Eat that frog -​ Why it’s better to do your most difficult and 
highest-value task first 
2. Slice & dice the task ​- 2 techniques that work against 
procrastination 
3. Law of 3 -​ Find your top 3 things where you are producing great 
value and where you have high strength 
4. Put pressure on yourself​ - How Parkinson’s law works for your 
productivity 
5. Plan in advance -​ 2 simple but powerful rules that you can apply 
when you’re planning 
6. Large chunks​ - The secret to doing a high volume of high-quality 
tasks 
7. Single-handle it -​ How doing fewer things can actually lead to 
higher productivity 

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1) Eat That Frog 
 
Most  people  have  a  long list of things that they want to do on a daily basis but they avoid some 
of these tasks because -- 
● They're long 
● They feel like a lot of work 
● They  feel  like  complicated  hard  work  while  the  other  tasks  on  their  list  are  simpler  and 
easier tasks that they can just knock off.  
 
So  they  start  off  by  doing the easy task first and they keep on delaying the most important task 
till the end of the day.  
 
And  that's  what  the  idea  of  “eat  that  frog”  is.  It’s  actually  one  of  those  fundamental  concepts 
that  will  make  you  feel  really  good  after  implementing  it  on  a  daily  basis.  We  need  to  start  off 
our  day  by  doing  the  most  important  thing  --  the  thing  that is going to be the highest leverage 
task -- first.  
 
That  thing  might  be  complicated  and  could  take  a  lot  of  mental  bandwidth.  But  if  you  do  that, 
the  rest  of  the  day  would  feel  like  breeze  because  you  have  conquered  your  most  difficult 
challenge. Now you can do anything. 
 
So eat your frog first: 
● The most difficult task 
● The most challenging task 
● The one that requires the most mental bandwidth  
● The one that will require the most time 
 
Do  that  task  first  and  let everything else happen at a later time. That is the whole idea of eating 
that frog.  
 

2) Slice and Dice that Task 

The following are 2 techniques that work almost every single time against procrastination. 
 
SLICE -​ Create the thinnest possible slice of a big task and start working on it.  
 
Let's  say  you have a big, giant overwhelming task that you're trying to stay away from. You find 
it  overwhelming;  you  feel  like  there's  just  so much to do that you just don't want to do it so you 
keep on putting it off.  

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Here's the “Slice” approach it: 
 
● Slice  the  task  into  smaller  and  smaller  slices,  almost  to  the  point  where  you  can  cut  off 
the  thinnest  possible  slice.  This  is  the slice that you know you can accomplish right now 
without feeling overwhelmed.  
● That  thin  slice  is  something  you'll  feel  confident  about  doing  right  now  without  feeling 
feeling like it's too much work.  
● EXAMPLE:  I  am  feeling  overwhelmed  by  the  speech  that  I  have  to  give  in  the  next 
couple  of  weeks.  To  slice  that  task,  I  decide  to  just go and create one slide with the title 
of the speech in there.  
● Now  what  happens  is  it  creates  momentum.  As  soon  as  I  create  one, I would feel that I 
can  do  another  one.  And  then  another  one.  And  another  one.  And  before  I  know  it,  I 
have  momentum  and  I  have actually started to take action on that overwhelmingly large 
task.  
 
DICE -​ Think of the big task as though it’s a large block of Swiss cheese. 
 
● Punch a hole into that task, as though it’s a block of Swiss cheese with holes in it.  
● What  this  means  is  that instead of thinking that you're going to go about creating a thin 
slice  of  that  task  to  work  on,  just  take any part of the task and work on it for, let’s say, 2 
minutes or whatever you think is comfortable right now.  
○ In  the  case  of  preparing  for  the  speech,  I  might  not  start  with  the  first  slide  and 
the title.   
○ Instead  I  will  set  a  2  minute  timer  and  work  on  that  task  for  2  minutes  -  on any 
portion of that task 
■ It might just be writing 3 bullets in my Evernote.  
■ Just 2 minutes to write the 3 bullets and then I am done 
 
So  just  resolving  to  do  the  task  in  a  really  small  amount  of  time  (even  2  minutes)  creates 
momentum. Now you feel like you can do more and more.  
 
Slice  and  Dice  are  two  really  simple  but  powerful  techniques. I have used this strategy to great 
success  when  doing  my  taxes  as  well.  Sometimes  it's  about  doing  that  one  thing (logging into 
my  account).  Sometimes  it's  just  saying  “Okay,  for  5  minutes  I'll  do  my  taxes.” Or maybe filling 
out a couple of lines in my tax forms. That's it.  
 

3) Law of 3 
Let's say you do a whole bunch of tasks on a daily basis.  
 

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 ● Identify those tasks. 
● Rank them on a scale of 1 to 10 according to 2 things: 
○ The v ​ alue t​ hey bring  
○ The s​ trength y ​ ou have in that area 
 

 
 
You  will  see,  for  example,  that  one  task  might  be  a  strength  but  doesn't  really  bring  you  any 
great  value,  another  task  might  be  vice-versa,  another  task  might  not  be  a  strength  nor 
something that brings value to your life or to your business either, and so on. 
 
● Find  3  things  that  are at the intersection of a) the greatest value you create in this world 
and b) your greatest strength.  
○ These  3  things  are  where  you  are  producing  a  lot  of  value  and  where  you  have 
very high strength.  
○ Those are the things you want to focus on  
○ Those 3 things will lead to almost 90 percent of your overall results 
 
So  just  doing  fewer  things  but  focusing  on  them  and  doing  them  very  well  will  lead  to 
exponential productivity. 

4) Put Pressure on Yourself 

 
Parkinson's law states: W
​ ork expands to fill the time and resources allotted to it.  
 

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Let's  say  you  have  x  amount of time allotted for some work. You will take that much time to get 
the work done. However, you dilly-dally and you delay.  
 
But  if  you  have  half  the  time  available,  you  will  still  find  a  way  to  get  the  work  done.  You  will 
probably  work  faster  and  you'll  be  more dedicated. Even if you give yourself less time on it, you 
will find a way to get that work done.  
 
If you give it less time, it will get done in less time.  
If you give it more time, it will get done in more time.  
 
The way to exploit Parkinson's law: P ​ ut pressure on yourself.   
 
These are the ways: 
 
1. M
​ anufacture deadlines. ​Tell yourself that it must be done by a certain day or certain time. 
 
Here, you have 2 options: 
● Internal deadline - Your own deadline  
● External deadline - Having an external entity impose that deadline 
 
For  whatever  you  work  on,  create  these deadlines in order to allow yourself to move really fast. 
When you have that deadline -- 
● You find a way to get things done.  
● You don't wait a lot of time.  
● You don't waste a lot of time. 
● You get done in really short amounts of time.  
 
2. R​ ace against the clock.  
 
● Set  yourself  a  timer  for  a  certain  task  and  then  try  to  get  it  done  within  that  time 
duration.  
● Some tools that you can use: 
○ Pomodoro timer 
○ KanbanFlow  
● Use  that  timer  to  put yourself against the time, as though racing against the clock to get 
your  tasks  done.  So  if  you  have  a  task,  tell  yourself  you'll  get  it  done  in,  let’s  say,  30 
minutes -- even though you think it might take 45 minutes.  
● Turn on the timer on your computer and see if you can get it done in 30 minutes.  
 
The  process  becomes  a  game  and  hence  fun.  And  what's  more  fun  than  being  productive and 
playing a game at the same time? 
 

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So  Parkinson's  law  is  a  really  simple  idea.  Work  will  expand  to  take  up  all  the  resources 
available to it. The more resources you give any task, the more resources that will take.  
 
Hence,  you  have  to  be  very  careful in giving your resources in order to get stuff done. You have 
to shrink the time to put pressure on yourself in order to become extremely productive. 

5) Plan in Advance 

The 10/90 Rule of Planning 

For every 10 minutes you invest in your planning, you get 90 minutes of time saved.  
 
Brian  Tracy  is  simply  saying  we  need  to  plan  in  advance,  because  the  10/90  rule  is  an  action 
there.  

The 2% Rule 
Whatever time horizon you're looking at, use 2% of that time to plan.  
 
Let’s look at the time we all have in general and how the 2% rule applies:  
 

 
● A  day  has  24  hours  or  1,440  minutes  in  it.  2%  of  that  time  is  around  28  minutes.  So 
spend roughly 30 minutes everyday to review your previous day and plan the next day.  
● A  week  has  168  hours. 2% of that time is around 3.5 hours. So spend around 3-4 hours 
of your time in reviewing and planning.  
● A  month  has  30  days.  2%  of  that  time  is  around  a  half-day.  Around  half-day  to  1  day 
should be spent in reviewing and planning your month.  
● A  quarter  has  90  days.  2%  of  90 days is around 1.8 eight days. So maybe a weekend is 
a great retreat to do your review and planning.  
● And  when  it  comes  to  a  year  (365  days),  7  days  is  the  2%  mark,  so  you  should  be 
spending a whole week in your review and planning.  
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6) Large Chunks of Time 

The  secret to doing high volumes of high-quality tasks that create 
massive leverage 
 
Most  people  have  a  long  calendar  with  a  lot  of  time  on  it,  but  what  happens  is  as  they  go 
through  their  day,  they’ll  get  distracted.  Maybe,  they'll  start  working  on  something  important 
and  then  they  get  distracted  by  social  media.  Then  they'll  get  back  to their work and then they 
get  distracted  by  something in their email and then they'll get back to work again and then they 
get  distracted  by  their  colleague  or  some  phone  call,  and  then  again  they'll  try  to  get  back  to 
work.  
 
That's  how  their  whole  day  goes  --  a  mishmash  of  all  sorts  of  things  happening  while  they're 
trying to get their work done. 
 
But  what  we  need  to  do  as  highly  productive  individuals  is  to  ​carve  out  large  chunks  of 
uninterrupted time for our work​. ​That’s the secret. 
 
Being  able  to  work  in  large  chunks  of  time  is  way  more  effective  than  working  in  dribs  and 
drabs of time.  
 
Which of the following would help you do higher volume of high quality work? 
 
● 10  hours  of  distracted  work  (punctuated  by  email,  social  media,  phone  calls,  meetings, 
SMS, etc ) 
● 5  hours  of  carved-out  chunks  of  time  where  you do nothing but one thing at a time and 
you turn off all distractions (maybe your WiFi, your phone, your email, etc.) 
 
The  answer  may  not  be  obvious  to you, but 5 hours of carved out chunks of time will beat even 
15 hours of distracted time.  
 
When  you  don't  have  those  large  volumes  of  time  available  to  you  and  you  haven't  turned  off 
all  distractions,  you  can  never  do  high-quality,  high-leverage,  high-volume  tasks.  It's  just  not 
possible.  
 
I  highly  recommend  you  start  with  one  hour  and  move  your  way  up  to  maybe  even  2 hours or 
3-hour  chunks  at  a  time  with  no  distraction  whatsoever.  Just  a  single-minded  focus  on  one 
task. That is where you get massive leverage. 

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7) Single-Handle That Task - Stop Multitasking! 

One  of  the  biggest  mistakes  people  make  in  productivity  is  that  they  go  from  task  to  task  to 
task. They make so many switches in between these tasks.  
 
The  most  time  efficient  way  to  go  about  finishing  any  task:  Just  work  on  the  same  task  for  an 
extended  period  of  time  until  you  get  it  done,  and  then  you  move  on  to  the  next  task until you 
get that done, and so on.  
 
This saves you a lot of time because of something called context switching. 

The Problem with Context Switch 

 
Every  time  you  switch  tasks,  there  is  a  context  switch  involved.  It's  the  same  with  computers. 
Every  time  you  switch  tasks,  you  move  things  in  and  out  of  memory  and  end  up  wasting  time 
and resources. 
 
Switching is a huge cost to our system and decreases our productivity tremendously. 
 
Not  only  do  we  end  up  wasting  time  and  resources,  but  our  quality  starts  to  diminish  as  we 
switch  between  tasks.  That  happens  because  we're  unable  to  keep  bringing  that  full  context 
back into our system at a rapid pace.  
 
So  when  you  are  working  on  a  task  and  you  feel  like  you're  not  making  a  breakthrough  --  it's 
not  time  to  move  to  another  task.  Rather, it's now time to double-down on that task and spend 
even  more  time  on  it  until  you  get  it  done.  That  will  give  you  the  fastest  results  and  extreme 
productivity.  
 
Related Books: 
●  
 
 

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