Eat That Frog by Brian

Eat That Frog by Brian

What is this book says?

Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy is about undertaking procrastination and leading a life of success by climbing all the mountains one plans to surmount. It is a well-written and easy-to-digest list of 21 key takeaways to help you stop procrastinating and get more work done.

About the Author

Brian Tracy is a leading self development author and coach in the United States of America. Tracy is a best selling writer with more than 40 books published, more than 300 video and audio programs produced, and a live audience of more than 250,000 each year. He has studied, researched, written and spoken for 30 years in the fields of economics, history, business, philosophy and psychology. 

He was born  in Canada to a family that struggled financially and had very few luxuries in life. He was a high school drop out and started his career as a labourer, working in several physically demanding jobs during his teenage years. Brian used many of the strategies he discusses in his books to turn his life around and achieve phenomenal success in life and business.

# Tags

#Brian Tracy #Fast Reading #Habit Building #Productivity #Self Help books #Self Improvement

Why to read Eat that Frog?

Do you also have a habit of postponing things? 

Do you need help doing something at the right time? 

Do you want to do a lot in your life but cannot manage it? 

Do you need help understanding what to do first and what to do later? 

If you are surrounded by these questions and need help understanding what to do precisely. 

This summary of today is going to be of great use to you. 

Today, I am going to summarize this fantastic book to get rid of procrastination.

How this book help you?

This book helps readers understand the importance of managing our priorities  and contains many highly practical and easy to implement suggestions for improving our effectiveness and ultimately to achieve our goals. In particular it focuses on the need to eliminate procrastination when completing key tasks.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Key Takeaway #1: Set the Table

Before you begin working it is vital that you decide exactly what you want to achieve. Clarity is essential for prioritising tasks and eliminating procrastinating. This chapter emphasises the vital importance of setting and writing down goals to achieve success. It is amazing how many people still do not set life or career goals. 7 Step Model for goal setting. Join my telegram channel to get this model in the workbook.

Key Takeaway #2: Plan every day in advance

Your ability to set goals, make plans and take action on them determines the quality of your  life. Taking action without planning is the cause of every failure and yet very few do it. Although many people don’t want to take the time to plan, it has been found that 10 minutes planning can save 100 minutes in execution. Planning is also a vital tool in helping us to avoid procrastination. Schedule the plan is available in the workbook which is provided in the telegram channel for your benefit. 

Key Takeaway #3: Apply 80/20 rule to everything

The 80/20 rule was established by an economist Vilfredo Pareto. He found that 80% of the wealth of countries was held by 20% of the population. He then discovered that this principle extended to most other areas in life and business.

For example

• 20% of the tasks we need to complete produces 80% of the results we are looking to achieve

• 20% of your products can produce 80% of your sales and so on.

The key message here is to identify your 20% tasks and resolve to spend time on these few areas that will really make the difference.

Key Takeaway #4: Consider the consequences of each task on your list.

One of the best ways of prioritising tasks is to consider the consequences of doing or not doing each task on your list. When considering the consequences you should take both a short and, in particular, a long-term view. In fact the ability to take a long-term perspective is a huge factor in the success of many people. Taking a long-term view can improve short-term decision making. 

Remember the law of forced efficiency - there is never enough time to do everything but there is always enough time to do the important things. 

The key message is to talk to yourself daily. How to talk to yourself is provided in workbook.  

Key Takeaway #5: Practice Creative Procrastination

This is the art of deciding to procrastinate on your low value tasks. That is deliberately deciding to postpone or eliminate these tasks.

We can’t do everything so start procrastinating on the things in your life that are not important. Normally we procrastinate unconsciously and start dropping the important tasks. To get control of your life you need to discontinue low value activities by saying no to others (or yourself).

Often doing something new requires you to stop doing something old. 

The key message is Practice Zero Based Thinking Art. Workbook provides this activity. 

Key Takeaway #6: Practice A, B, C, D & E Method of Prioritising

This is a simple method used to prioritise your list of tasks that need to be completed to ensure the most important ones are done.

Description of each code is as follows.

• A tasks must be completed today. These are the tasks that are very important and that have significant consequences if not completed that day.

• B tasks should be done today but are not essential (mild consequences). Never complete a B task before all A tasks have been completed.

• C Tasks are nice to do but there are no consequences whether you do them or not. Meeting someone for coffee or phone a friend may fit into this category.

• D tasks are ones that can and should be delegated to others.

• E tasks can be eliminated altogether with no consequences. Often only done out of habit or because you enjoy them. They may have been important at some stage. Tasks are then also prioritised within each category. 

For example

the most important A task should be A1, the next most important A2 etc. Always start the day with your A1 task. It is usually your biggest and ugliest frog.

This is a very powerful and yet simplistic method for transforming your efficiency.

Key Takeaway #7: Focus on Key Result Areas

Every job we do can be broken down into 5-7 key areas. These are the areas we need to focus on to succeed. These can be defined as areas that you are completely responsible for and that are within your control. In your job these are the areas that will affect your pay and your ability to be promoted. Therefore you should agree your key areas with your manager. A good question to ask is “Why am I on the payroll”.

Your weakest key area will set the standards that you will achieve. A weakness in one area can drag you down and result in failure overall. Consider the analogy of one of your major organs ceasing to function.

For example a key area for a manager is delegation. If a manager is unable to delegate this could have a huge impact on the success the manager can potentially achieve. Of course the tasks that we are not so good are often the ones we procrastinate over which often makes things worse.

Key Takeaway #8: The Law of 3 Approach

This law is basically that there are usually 3 key tasks that will give you 90% of the results you want. Make a list of all of the tasks you need to complete. 

For example

there may be 17 tasks on your list. Decide on your 3 key tasks and do them. For the other tasks you can look to delegate, outsource or look for support (where possible).

This can have a dramatic effect on the results you achieve. The author provides examples of some of his clients who doubled their income within 12 months using this approach. 

The key message is one can double the money by doing 3 best tasks which leads to work efficiently and balanced finally reaching to lead an enjoyable life with family members 

Key Takeaway #9: Prepare thoroughly before you begin

It really pays to prepare before you begin working each day or before you begin working on a specific task.

To thoroughly prepare you should clear your desk of anything not required to complete this specific task, gather all the materials etc that you will need so that you don’t even have to get up for say a file and then start doing it.

Fear can often stop us from getting started but when you do get started then “the death of fear is certain”. Get your task completed to 80% of the finished product and then start improving it. The key message is Don’t be afraid of failures. The main thing is to get started and learn from any errors or failures.

Key Takeaway #10: Take one oil barrel at a time

The famous Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said “the journey of 1,000 leagues begins with a single step”

When a task just appears to be too big to achieve then it is very useful to break in down (often referred to “Chunking it down”) to get started. Remember to break down any big tasks into a series of smaller tasks (steps) and start with task 1. When you do that move on to task 2 and so on. Once started the momentum will ensure that you keep going and make real progress against your bigger goal.

Key Takeaway #11: Upgrade your key skills

You should continuously strive to improve your key skills. One of the major causes of procrastination is a lack of confidence in your ability to do that task well. What are the key skills you need to be really excellent at what you do. Is it marketing, sales or even your time management skills?

Then look out for seminars, training courses, or books that will help you develop and enhance these skills. Audio books are a great option for self improvement. 

For example

you can learn so much using time that previously appeared to be wasted while sitting in traffic.

Remember every skill is learnable. The author uses his own personal example of how he realised that his typing skills (the hunt and peck method) was holding him back from his goal of writing books.

Therefore he found a touch typing course that he completed and then practised for 30 minutes a day for 3 months. He transformed his typing skills and saves countless hours every week as a result.

The Key message is practice 303 rule (30 minutes for 3 months) for new learning/habit. 

Pat Reilly, once said “If you are not getting better then you are getting worse”.

Key Takeaway #12: Leverage your special talents

We should all tap into your strengths and talents to enable us to do a great job. Very important for us to be clear about our special talents and skills. To identify them ask yourself

• What am I really good at.

• What talents come naturally to me that others can find difficult.

• What strength do I have that has been most responsible for my success to date

• What job would I do if I won the lotto and didn’t need to worry about my finances

When you are clear about your special strengths and talents, focus on these areas and make sure you tap into them to achieve even greater success. 

One way of identifying your special talents is to ask yourself what is it that you really enjoy doing. You see we are built to enjoy completing tasks that we are really good at.

Remember one of your greatest responsibilities in life is to find out what you are good at and then to focus on doing these tasks to become even better and achieve greater success

Key Takeaway #13: Identify Your Key Constraints

Everyone has some key constraints. These constraints set the speed at which you are attain your goals. Could it be your sales and marketing skills or processes, your ability to sort through mails and other interruptions Could it be resources or another person. It could it be internal e.g. a limiting beliefs you possess. The 80/20 rule applies here. 80% of constraints are usually internal whereas only 20% are related to external factors such as competition.

We need to identify the key constraint. Ask yourself why have I not achieved my goals already. Then decide what action is required to eliminate this constraint. And then, of course, take that action. When the key constraint has been removed move on and ask yourself again – what is now the key constraint. Then look to eliminate that and continue to move on. However we need to be careful not to identify the wrong constraint. 

For example the company who blamed their drop in sales on their sales force and removed a number of them. They then discovered that it was an error in the pricing of their products that caused the drop in sales.

Key Takeaway #14: Put Pressure on Yourself

Many people look to others to push or motivate them to work harder and achieve success. However to be truly successful we need to put pressure on ourselves to complete our tasks and achieve our goals. Waiting for others to do this is like waiting for a bus on a street where buses don’t travel. About 2% of people can work entirely on their own. We call these people “Leaders”. You can become one.

Set deadlines and task times for the key tasks you have to complete to achieve your goals and then aim to meet and even beat these deadlines. Self esteem can be defined as your reputation with yourself. 

Everytime you push yourself to achieve something it will improve your self esteem.

Key Takeaway #15: Maximise Your Personal Powers

This is about increasing our energy levels to improve our overall performance. Go for physical exercise routine or spiritual practice or praying god to maximize your personal powers.

Key Takeaway #16: Motivate Yourself into Action

Being positive and optimist will make a big difference to your success levels. And anyone can become an optimist.

Martin Seligman in his book “Learned Optimism” says that there are 3 learned behaviours of optimists.

• They always look for the positive in every situation – and they always find it.

• They look at what can be learned from setbacks. They see setbacks as instructive.

• They look for the solutions to every problem.

Optimists also always look forward rather than back. Positivity is linked to self esteem. Whatever you can do to improve your self esteem will make you more positive.

Affirmations are a very useful tool for this. Remember that what you continuously focus on and think about is what you will get out of your life – so focus on the positive.

Key Takeaway #17: Get out of the technological time

The message here is to make technology your friend and not your enemy.

People are being controlled more and more by their mobile phones, emails, the internet etc. As a result we never switch off and relax. 

The author quotes a funny example of a wedding he attended where everyone at his table bowed their heads for a prayer before the meal. However they continued to bow their heads after the meal was finished. He assumed that the prayer had a profound effect on them but then realised that they were all using their blackberries.

Email can consume a huge part of a person’s day. Some people can get 300 + emails per day.

Remember the 80/20 rule applies here. 80% of our mails have no value. Of the 20% that do, 80% of these require no immediate action.

If you are in a position to you should delegate the task of sorting your mails to an assistant. When you return from holidays to 100’s of mails consider deleting them all. If someone sent you something that was really important they will send it again. 

Remember to make technology a help rather than a hindrance. If you let it control your life it will only add to your stress levels.

Key Takeaway #18: Slice and dice the task

One of the biggest causes of procrastination is when you feel that the task is too big to get started. When this happens we tend to avoid completing the task and doing smaller (less  important) tasks instead. 

If a task appears too big then we should break it down into it’s different elements and then do the first 1 or 2 sub tasks. Using the Salami metaphor cut the task into manageable slices.

By breaking down your big tasks into a number of small tasks you get to complete or finish more tasks. The advantage of this is that humans get a great sense of enjoyment by completion, As we complete tasks a physical reaction occurs in our bodies as endorphins are released.

This makes us feel good and makes it even more likely that you will continue with the rest of the smaller tasks required to complete the bigger task.

Another technique to avoid procrastination on a large task is called the Swiss Cheese method.

This is where you punch a hole in a large task by say deciding to work on it for a set time (say 30 minutes and then drop it (if required). Often after you have got started and spend 30 minutes on the task you will want to continue and make even more progress or even, perhaps, complete the entire task.

Key Takeaway #19: Create large chunks of time

Most of the really important work you do requires large chunks of unbroken time to complete. Your ability to carve out 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. You can make great progress on a task or goal if you dedicated a block of time to working on that task.

Really successful people manage to carve out blocks of time to focus on the key tasks that they need to complete to achieve their goals. These blocks can be 30 minutes or even 1 or 2 hours.

Ideally the time should be scheduled into your day as you plan your day in advance. Make an appointment with yourself to complete the tasks at a specific time and make sure you keep the appointment. During this time you should work uninterrupted and continuously on the task. Don’t take calls (switch off phone) and don’t check your emails. 

By applying this method your productivity can increase by 2, 3 or even 5 times. A Time Planner broken down into various time segments throughout the day can be one of the most powerful personal productivity tools of all. 

Key Takeaway #20: Develop a sense of urgency 

One of the most outwardly identifiable quality of a highly successful person is action orientation – they are in a hurry to get their key tasks completed. When you are working on your key tasks you should develop a sense of urgency to motivate yourself to get them completed.

When you do this consistently with a high level of action and energy you can enter what is known as a state of flow. In this state you reach higher levels of clarity, creativity and competency. You can come up with brilliant ideas and tap into your intuition. This will motivate you to get going and keep going.

When you become action orientated you can activate the momentum principle of success. This states that it can take a huge amount of energy to get started and overcome inertia but once you generate the energy to get started it takes far less energy to keep going. In fact you will then go faster and faster with less and less energy.

If you find yourself tempted to stop and procrastinate repeat mantras to yourself to keep up this sense of urgency (e.g. “Do it now” or “Back to work”).

Key Takeaway #21: Single handle every task

Your ability to select your most important task, to begin it and then to concentrate on it single minded until it is complete is the key to high levels of performance and personal productivity. What this idea means is that when you start on a task you continue on it without allowing any interruptions until it is 100% complete.

If you are interrupted momentarily then repeat the mantra “Back to work, back to work”

It has been estimated that our tendency to pick up a task and then to keep dropping it and then picking it up again can increase the amount of time required to complete it by 500%.

Each time you go back to the task you need to familiarize yourself with it again. You need to overcome inertia and develop momentum again.

However when you prepare thoroughly for a key task and focus on it single mindedly you develop energy enthusiasm and motivation and get the job done better and far more quickly.

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