Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time

by Brian Tracy

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The Quick List Method

“In thirty seconds, write down your three most important goals in life right now.”

Rule: It is the quality of time at work that counts and the quantity of time at home that matters.

Work All the Time You Work To keep your life in balance, you should resolve to work all the time you work. When you go to work, put your head down and work the whole time. Start a little earlier, stay a little later, and work a little harder. Don’t waste time. Every minute that you spend in idle chitchat with coworkers is time taken away from the work that you must accomplish if you want to do well at your job.

9 Prepare Thoroughly Before You Begin

No matter what the level of your ability, you have more potential than you can ever develop in a lifetime. JAMES T. MCCAY

Take the First Step When you sit down with everything in front of you, ready to go, assume the body language of high performance. Sit up straight; sit forward and away from the back of the chair.

10 Take It One Oil Barrel at a Time

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.

Lao-tzu wrote, “A journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step.”

11 Upgrade Your Key Skills

The only certain means of success is to render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be. OG MANDINO

Continually upgrade your skills in your key result areas. Remember, however good you are today, your knowledge and skills are becoming obsolete at a rapid rate.

Never Stop Learning One of the most helpful of all time management techniques is for you to get better at your key tasks.

Identify the most important things you do, and then make a plan to continually upgrade your skills in those areas.

Rule: Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.

Three Steps to Mastery

First, read in your field for at least one hour every day.

Second, take every course and seminar available on the key skills that can help you.

The more you learn and know, the more confident and motivated you feel.

12 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. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

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 really make a difference? Why aren’t you at your goal already?

The world is full of people who are waiting for someone to come along and motivate them to be the kind of people they wish they could be. The problem is that no one is coming to the rescue.

Only about 2 percent of people can work entirely without supervision. We call these people “leaders.”

This is the kind of person you are meant to be and that you can be, if you decide to be.

To reach your full potential, you must form the habit of putting the pressure on yourself and not waiting for someone els...

Lead the Field See yourself as a role model. Raise the bar on yourself. The standards you set for your own work and behavior should be higher than anyone else could set for you.

Make a game of starting a little earlier, working a little harder, and staying a little later. Always look for ways to go the extra mile, to do more than you are paid for.

Your self-esteem has been defined by psychologist Nathaniel Branden as “the reputatio...

The good news is that you feel better about yourself whenever you push yourself to do your best. You increase your self-esteem whenever you go beyond the point where the average person would normally quit.

Create Imaginary Deadlines

Imagine each day that you have just received an emergency message and that you will have to leave town tomorrow for a month. 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.

14 Motivate Yourself into Action

“You should never share your problems with others because 80 percent of people don’t care about them anyway, and the other 20 percent are kind of glad that you’ve got them in the first place.”

Develop a Positive Mental Attitude

When you continually visualize your goals and ideals and talk to yourself in a positive way, you feel more focused and energized.

There is more to life than just increasing its speed. MOHANDAS GANDHI

Schedule large blocks of time for task completion into your calendar, as if they were appointments. Be so aggressive about it that when people look at your calendar, they will see only a tiny slice of free time. This will impress them and motivate them to schedule shorter meetings.

Let your organization know that you are interested in learning about technological tools that will make you more efficient.

Posting on social media about your progress is a great way to reward yourself for making headway on long-term projects.

17 Focus Your Attention

All of life is the study of attention; where your attention goes, your life follows. JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI

Focused attention is the key to high...

Finally, resolve to check your e-mail only twice a day, at 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.,

Double Your Productivity

First, plan each day in advance, select your most important task, and then start on that task first thing, before you do anything else. Second, work nonstop for ninety minutes with no diversion or distraction, and then give yourself a fifteen-minute break. Third, start again and work another ninety minutes flat out. Finally, after this three-hour work period, you can then reward yourself with a shot of dopamine by checking your e-mail.

You will regain full control of your life.

18 Slice and Dice the Task