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

by Brian Tracy

The ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life.

there are so many good things that you can do that your ability to decide among them may be the critical determinant of what you accomplish in life.

you will never be able to do everything you have to do. You will never be caught up.

The first rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one 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.

With practice, you can learn any behavior or develop any habit that you consider either desirable or necessary.

You need three key qualities to develop the habits of focus and concentration, which are all learnable. They are decision, discipline, and determination.

all your strength by striving for ever-greater clarity in your major goals and tasks.

Step one: Decide exactly what you want.

Step two: Write it down.

numerous mistakes. Step three: Set a deadline on your goal; set subdeadlines if necessary.

Step four: Make a list of everything you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal.

Step five: Organize the list into a plan.

Step six: Take action on your plan immediately.

Step seven: Resolve to do something every single day that moves you toward your major goal.

Make your list the night before for the workday ahead. Move everything that you have not yet accomplished onto your list for the coming day, and then add everything that you have to do the next day.

First, you should create a master list on which you write down everything you can think of that you want to do sometime in the future.

Second, you should have a monthly list that you make at the end of the month for the month ahead.

Third, you should have a weekly list where you plan your entire week in advance.

Finally, you should transfer items from your monthly and weekly lists onto your daily list.

The 80/20 Rule

the “Pareto Principle”

Often, a single task can be worth more than all the other nine items put together.

The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex.

Rule: Resist the temptation to clear up small things first.

Time management is really life management, personal management.

Time management is taking control over what you do next.

Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of yo...

The mark of the superior thinker is his or her ability to accurately predict the consequences of doing or not doing something.

a “long time perspective” is the most accurate single predictor of upward social and economic mobility

Rule: Long-term thinking improves short-term decision making.

Successful people have a clear future orientation. They think five, ten, and twenty years out into the future.

Rule: Future intent influences and often determines present actions.

Rule: There will never be enough time to do everything you have to do.

“What are my highest-value activities?”

“What can I and only I do, that if done well, will make a real difference?”

“What is the most valuable use of my time right now?”

You have to procrastinate on something. Therefore, deliberately and consciously procrastinate on small tasks.

Decide to procrastinate on, outsource, delegate, and eliminate those activities that don’t make much of a contribution to your life in any case. Get rid of the tadpoles and focus on the frogs.

A priority is something that you do more of and sooner, while a posteriority is something that you do less of and later, if at all.

Rule: You can get your time and your life under control only to the degree to which you discontinue lower-value activities.

The first law of success is concentration—to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor to the left. WILLIAM MATHEWS

You start with a list of everything you have to do for the coming day.

You then place an A, B, C, D, or E next to each item on your list before you begin the first task.

“Why am I on the payroll?” This is one of the most important questions you can ever ask and answer, over and over again, throughout your career.

But certain key results are central to your work and determine your success or failure in your job. What are they?

Make a list of your most important output responsibilities, and make sure that the people above you, on the same level as you, and below you are in agreement with it.

Rule: Your weakest key result area sets the height at which you can use all your other skills and abilities.

Here is one of the greatest questions you will ever ask and answer.

“What one skill, if I developed and did it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on my career?”