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

by Brian Tracy

No matter how many personal productivity techniques you master, there will always be more to do than you can ever accomplish in the time you have available to you, no matter how much it is.

You can get control of your time and your life only by changing the way you think, work, and deal with the never-ending river of responsibilities that flows over you each day. You can get control of your tasks and activities only to the degree that you stop doing some things and start spending more time on the few activities that can really make a difference in your life.

“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.”

I had fallen into the mental trap of assuming that people who were doing better than me were actually better than me.

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.

An average person who develops the habit of setting clear priorities and getting important tasks completed quickly will run circles around a genius who talks a lot and makes wonderful plans but who gets very little done.

Resist the temptation to start with the easier task.

Continually remind yourself that one of the most important decisions you make each day is what you will do immediately and what you will do later, if you do it at all.

develop the lifelong habit of tackling your major task first thing each morning. You must develop the routine of “eating your frog” before you do anything else and without taking too much time to think about it.

quality of “action orientation” stands out as the most observable and consistent behavior they demonstrate in everything they do.

“Failure to execute”

people confuse activity with accomplishment.

The habit of setting priorities, overcoming procrastination, and getting on with your most important task is a mental and physical skill. As such, this habit is learnable through practice and repetition, over and over again, until it locks into your subconscious mind and becomes a permanent part of your behavior. Once it becomes a habit, it becomes both automatic and easy to do.

You are designed mentally and emotionally in such a way that task completion gives you a positive feeling. It makes you happy. It makes you feel like a winner.

complete a task of any size or importance, you feel a surge of energy, enthusiasm, and self-esteem. The more important the completed task, the happier, more confident, and more powerful you feel about yourself and your world.

develop a “positive addiction” to endorphins and to the feeling of enhanced clarity, confidence, and competence that they trigger.

at an unconscious level, begin to organize your life in such a way that you are continually starting and completing ever more important tasks and projects. You will actually become addicted, in a very positive sense, to success and contribution.

how he can get to Carnegie Hall. The musician replies, “Practice, man, practice.”

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

decision, discipline, and determination.

make a decision to develop the habit of task completion. Second, discipline yourself to practice the principles you are about to learn over and over until they become automatic. And third, back everything you do with determination until the habit is locked in and becomes a permanent part of your personality.

Decision Discipline Determination

Visualize Yourself as You Want to Be

All improvements in your outer life begin with improvements on the inside, in your mental pictures.

virtually unlimited ability to learn and develop new skills, habits, and abilities.

major reason for procrastination and lack of motivation is vagueness, confusion, and fuzzy-mindedness about what you are trying to do and in what order and for what reason.

Think on paper.

Step one: Decide exactly what you want.

Step two: Write it down.

a goal or objective that is not in writing is merely a wish or a fantasy. It has no energy behind it. Unwritten goals lead to confusion, vagueness, misdirection, and 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.

Organize your list by priority and sequence. List all tasks in the order they need to be done. Take a few minutes to decide what you need to do first and what you can do later. Decide what has to be done before something else and what needs to be done afterward.

lay out your plan visually in the form of a series of boxes and circles on a sheet of paper, with lines and arrows showing the relation...

Step six: Take action on your plan immediately.

Do something. Do anything.

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

never miss a day.

start moving, keep moving. Don’t stop.

Clear written goals have a wonderful effect on your thinking. They motivate you and galvanize you into action. They stimulate your creativity, release your energy, and help you overcome procrastination

Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now. ALAN LAKEIN

“Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.”

Always work from a list. When something new comes up, add it to the list before you do it.

When you make your list the night before, your subconscious mind will work on your list all night long while you sleep. Often you will wake up with great ideas and insights that you can use to get your job done faster and better than you had initially thought.

10/90 Rule. This rule says that the first 10 percent of time that you spend planning and organizing your work before you begin will save you as much as 90 percent of the time in getting the job done once you get started.

10% planning saves 90% getting job done

80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It is also called the “Pareto Principle”

Pareto Principle 20% of activity accounts for 80% of results

20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results, 20 percent of your customers will account for 80 percent of your sales, 20 percent of your products or services will account for 80 percent of your profits, 20 percent of your tasks will account for 80 percent of the value of what you do, and so on. This means that if you have a list of ten items to do, two of those items will turn out to be worth much more than the other eight items put together.

adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80 percent while you still have tasks in the top 20 percent left to be done.

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

time required to complete an important job is often the same as the time required to do an unimportant job. The difference is that you get a tremendous feeling of pride and satisfaction from completing something valuable and significant. However, when you complete a low-value task using the same amount of time and energy, you get little or no satisfaction.