Eat that frog!

– Brian Tracy

“You cannot teach a man anything; you can

only help him find it within himself.”

The first rule of frog eating is this:

If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one
first.
if you have two
important tasks before you, start with the biggest, hardest,
and most important task first.

The second rule of frog eating is this:

If you have to eat a live frog at all, it doesn't pay to
sit and look at it for very long.
You must develop the routine of “eating your frog” before you do
anything else and without taking too much time to think about it.

Chapter-1 – Set the table

 Clarity is perhaps the most important concept in personal
productivity.
 Here is a great rule for success:
Think on paper.
 seven-part method –
 1. Decide exactly what you want.
Stephen Covey says, “Before you begin scrambling up the
ladder of success, make sure that it is leaning against the
right building.”

2. Write it down.
Think on paper. Unwritten goals lead to confusion,
vagueness, misdirection, and numerous mistakes.

3. Set a deadline on your goal; set sub deadlines

if necessary.
A goal or decision without a deadline has no
Urgency.

4. Make a list of everything that you can think of

that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal.
A list gives you a visual picture of the larger task or
objective. It gives you a track to run on.

5. Organize the list into a plan.

Organize your list by priority and sequence.

6. Take action on your plan immediately.

An average plan vigorously executed is far better than a
brilliant plan on which nothing is done.

7. Resolve to do something every single day that moves you

toward your major goal.

Chapter-2 - Plan Every Day in Advance

“Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.”

Chapter-3 – Apply the 80/20 rule to everything

 It is the pareto principle.

 This principle says that 20 percent of your activities will account
for 80 percent of your results.
 one item on a list of ten tasks that you have to do can be worth
more than all the other nine items put together. This task is
invariably the frog that you should eat first.
 Can you guess on which items the average person is most likely to
procrastinate?
The sad fact is that most people procrastinate on the top 10 or 20
percent of items that are the most valuable and important, the
“vital few.” They busy themselves instead with the least
important 80 percent, the “trivial many” that contribute very little
to results.
 Rule: Resist the temptation to clear up small things first.
 whatever you choose to do over and over eventually becomes a
habit that is hard to break.

Chapter-4 – Consider the consequences

Every great man has become great,

every successful man has succeeded,
in proportion as he has confined his
powers to one particular channel.
  People who take a long view of their lives and careers always
seem to make much better decisions about their time and
activities than people who give very little thought to the future.
 Rule: Long-term thinking improves short-term decision making.
 The clearer you are about your future intentions, the greater
influence that clarity will have on what you do in the moment.
 Successful people are those who are willing to delay gratification
and make sacrifices in the short term so that they can enjoy far
greater rewards in the long term.
 The time is going to pass anyway. The only question is how you
use it and where you are going to end up at the end of the weeks
and months that pass.
 “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always
enough time to do the most important thing.”
 Rule: There will never be enough time to do everything you have
to do.
 You can use three questions on a regular basis to keep yourself
focused on completing your most important tasks on schedule.
1. “What are my highest value activities?”
2. “What can I and only I do that if done well will make a real
difference?”
3. “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?”
 “Only engage, and the mind grows heated. Begin it, and the work
will be completed.”

Chapter-5 – Practice creative procrastination

 The fact is that you can’t do everything that you have to do. You
have to procrastinate on something. Therefore, procrastinate on
small tasks.
  The difference between high performers and low performers is
largely determined by what they choose to procrastinate on.
 Rule: You can get your time and your life under control only to the
degree to which you discontinue lower-value activities.

Chapter-6 – Use the ABCDE method

continually

A = Must do
B = Should do
C = Nice to do
D = Delegate
E = Eliminate

Chapter-7 – Focus on key result areas

 The starting point of high performance is for you to identify

the key result areas of your work.
 Rule: Your weakest key result area sets the height
at which you can use all your other skills and abilities.
 Poor Performance Produces Procrastination.
 “What one skill, if I developed and did it in an excellent fashion,
would have the greatest positive impact on my career?”.
Ask your boss this question. Ask your co-workers. Ask your friends
and your family.
Chapter-8 – Apply the Law of Three

 Three core tasks that you perform contain most of the value that
you contribute to your business or organization.
 Main reason to develop time management skill is that you can
complete the most important things first and quickly and free up
more and more time to do the things in your personal life that can
give happiness and satisfaction.
 Rule: It is the quality of time at work that counts and the quantity
of time at home that matters.
 In thirty seconds, write down your three most important goals in
life right now.
people have three goals in common: first, a financial and career
goal; second, a family or personal relationship goal; and third, a
health or a fitness goal.
 we expand this exercise by asking the following questions:
1. What are your three most important business or career goals
right now?
2. What are your three most important family or relationship
goals right now?
3. What are your three most important financial goals right now?
4. What are your three most important health goals right now?
5. What are your three most important personal and professional
development goals right now?
6. What are your three most important social and community
goals right now?
7. What are your three biggest problems or concerns in life right
now?
 Answer all above question in less than 30 seconds.
Chapter-9 – Prepare thoroughly before you
begin

 Don’t expect perfection the first time or even the first few times.
Be prepared to fail over and over before you get it right.
 The cleaner and neater your work environment, the more
positive, productive, and confident you feel.

Chapter-10 – Take it one oil barrel at a time

 “by the yard it’s hard; but inch by inch, anything’s a cinch!”
 One of the best ways to overcome procrastination is for you to
get your mind off the huge task in front of you and focus on a
single action that you can take.
 A great life or a great career is built by performing one task at a
time, quickly and well, and then going on to the next task.
 Financial independence is achieved by saving a little money every
single month, year after year.
 Health and fitness are accomplished by just eating a little less and
exercising a little more, day after day and month after month.

Chapter-11 – Upgrade your key skills

 “Anytime you stop striving to get better, you’re bound to get

worse”.
  Rule: Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for
success in any field.
 The best news is that you can learn whatever skills you need to be
more productive and more effective.

Chapter-12 – Leverage your special talents

 Successful people are invariably those who have taken the time to
identify what they do well and most enjoy.
 Continually ask yourself these key questions: “What am I really
good at? What do I enjoy the most about my work? What has
been most responsible for my success in the past? If I could do
any job at all, what job would it be?”

Chapter-13 – Identify your key constraints

 Concentrate all your thoughts on the task at hand. The sun’s rays
do not burn until brought to a focus.
 Between where you are today and any goal or objective that you
want to accomplish, there is one major constraint that must be
overcome before you can achieve that major goal.
 80 percent of the constraints, the factors that are holding you
back from achieving your goals, are internal. They are within
yourself—within your own personal qualities, abilities, habits,
disciplines, or competencies.
 “What is it in me that is holding me back?”
  Identify your most important goal in life today. What is it? What
one goal, if you achieved it, would have the greatest positive
effect on your life? What one career accomplishment would have
the greatest positive impact on your work life?

Chapter-14 – 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.
 If you had to leave town for a month, what would you make
absolutely sure that you got done before you left? Whatever your
answer, go to work on that task right now.
 Write out every step of a major job or project before you begin.
Determine how many minutes and hours you will require to
complete each phase. Then race against your own clock. Beat
your own deadlines. Make it a game and resolve to win!

Chapter-15 – Maximize your personal powers

 By eating lean and healthy, exercising regularly, and getting lots of

rest, you’ll get more and better work done easier and with greater
satisfaction than ever before.
  The better you feel when you start work, the less you will
procrastinate and the more eager you will be to get the job done
and get on with other tasks.

Chapter-16 – Motivate yourself into action

 Refuse to complain about your problems. Keep them to yourself.

 optimism is the most important quality you can develop for
personal and professional success and happiness.
 optimists have four special behaviours,
First, optimists look for the good in every situation.
Second, optimists always seek the valuable lesson in every setback
or difficulty. They believe that “difficulties come not to obstruct
but to instruct.”
Third, optimists always look for the solution to every problem.
Instead of blaming or complaining when things go wrong, they
become action oriented.
Fourth, optimists think and talk continually about their goals.
They think about what they want and how to get it.
 When you continually visualize your goals and ideals and talk to
yourself in a positive way, you feel more focused and energized.
 Control your thoughts. Remember, you become what you think
about most of the time. Be sure that you are thinking and talking
about the things you want rather than the things you don’t want.
 Keep your mind positive by accepting complete responsibility for
yourself and for everything that happens to you. Refuse to
criticize others, complain, or blame others for anything. Resolve
to make progress rather than excuses.
Chapter-17 – Get out of the technological time
sinks
 Resolve today to create zones of silence during your day-to-day
activities. Turn off all communication devices and technology for
one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. You will
be amazed at what happens: nothing!

Chapter-18 – Slice and Dice the task

 A major reason for procrastinating on big, important tasks is that

they appear so large and formidable when you first approach
them.
 Psychologically, you will find it easier to do a single, small piece of
a large project than to start on the whole job.
 Become action oriented. A common quality of high-performance
men and women is that when they hear a good idea, they take
action on it immediately. As a result, they learn more, learn faster,
and get much better results. Don’t delay. Try it today!

Chapter-19 – Create Large chunks of time

 Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all of
your energies on a limited set of targets.
  Most of the really important work you do requires large chunks of
unbroken time to complete.
 A time planner, broken down by day, hour, and minute and
organized in advance, can be one of the most powerful personal
productivity tools of all.
 During these working times, turn off the telephone, eliminate all
distractions, and work nonstop.
 One of the keys to high levels of performance and productivity is
to make every minute count.

Chapter-20 – Develop a sense of urgency

 Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.” Start where you
stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your
command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
 Momentum Principle of success. This principle says that although
it may take tremendous amounts of energy to overcome inertia
and get started initially, it then takes far less energy to keep going.
 One of the simplest and yet most powerful ways to get yourself
started is to repeat the words “Do it now! Do it now! Do it now!”
over and over to yourself.
Chapter-21 – Single hand every task
 Single handling requires that once you begin, you keep working at
the task without diversion or distraction until the job is 100
percent complete.
 It has been estimated that the tendency to start and stop a task—
to pick it up, put it down, and come back to it—can increase the
time necessary to complete the task by as much as 500 percent.
Each time you return to the task, you have to familiarize yourself
with where you were when you stopped and what you still have
to do.

Crisp summary

1. Set the table: Decide exactly what you want. Clarity is essential.
Write out your goals and objectives before you begin.
2. Plan every day in advance: Think on paper. Every minute you spend
in planning can save you five or ten minutes in execution.
3. Apply the 80/20 Rule to everything: Twenty percent of your
activities will account for 80 percent of your results. Always
concentrate your efforts on that top 20 percent.
4. Consider the consequences: Your most important tasks and priorities
are those that can have the most serious consequences, positive or
negative, on your life or work. Focus on these above all else.
5. Practice creative procrastination: Since you can’t do everything, you
must learn to deliberately put off those tasks that are of low value so
that you have enough time to do the few things that really count.
6. Use the ABCDE Method continually: Before you begin work on a list
of tasks, take a few moments to organize them by value and priority so
you can be sure of working on your most important activities.
7. Focus on key result areas: Identify and determine those results that
you absolutely, positively have to get to do your job well, and work on
them all day long.
8. The Law of Three: Identify the three things you do in your work that
account for 90 percent of your contribution, and focus on getting them
done before anything else. You will then have more time for your family
and personal life.
9. Prepare thoroughly before you begin: Have everything you need at
hand before you start. Assemble all the papers, information, tools,
work materials, and numbers you might require so that you can get
started and keep going.
10. Take it one oil barrel at a time: You can accomplish the biggest and
most complicated job if you just complete it one step at a time.
11. Upgrade your key skills: The more knowledgeable and skilled you
become at your key tasks, the faster you start them and the sooner you
get them done.
12. Leverage your special talents: Determine exactly what it is that you
are very good at doing, or could be very good at, and throw your whole
heart into doing those specific things very, very well.
13. Identify your key constraints: Determine the bottlenecks or choke
points, internal or external, that set the speed at which you achieve
your most important goals, and focus on alleviating them.
14. Put the pressure on yourself: Imagine that you have to leave town
for a month, and work as if you had to get all your major tasks
completed before you left.
15. Maximize your personal power: Identify your periods of highest
mental and physical energy each day, and structure your most
important and demanding tasks around these times. Get lots of rest so
you can perform at your best.
16. Motivate yourself into action: Be your own cheerleader. Look for
the good in every situation. Focus on the solution rather than the
problem. Always be optimistic and constructive.
17. Get out of the technological time sinks: Use technology to improve
the quality of your communications, but do not allow yourself to
become a slave to it. Learn to occasionally turn things off and leave
them off.
18. Slice and dice the task: Break large, complex tasks down into bite-
sized pieces, and then do just one small part of the task to get started.
19. Create large chunks of time: Organize your days around large
blocks of time where you can concentrate for extended periods on your
most important tasks.
20. Develop a sense of urgency: Make a habit of moving fast on your
key tasks. Become known as a person who does things quickly and well.
21. Single handle every task: Set clear priorities, start immediately on
your most important task, and then work without stopping until the job
is 100 percent complete. This is the real key to high performance and
maximum personal productivity.