Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating PDF

Eat That Frog! O t h e r B o o k s b y B r i a n Tr a c y Maximum Achievement Advanced Selling Strategies The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success The 21 Success Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires Focal Point Victory! Create Your Own Future Goals! TurboStrategy Be a Sales Superstar Hire and Keep the Best People Get Paid More and Promoted Faster Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life Million Dollar Habits Time Power Getting Rich Your Own Way TurboCoach The Psychology of Selling Something for Nothing The Art of Closing the Sale Crunch Point The Way to Wealth Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time Brian Tracy BK BERRETT-KOEHLER PUBLISHERS, INC. San Francisco a BK Life book Eat That Frog! Copyright © 2007 by Brian Tracy All rights reserved. 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To my remarkable daughter Catherine, an amazing girl with a wonderful mind and an incredible future lying before her This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Introduction: Eat That Frog 1 1 Set the Table 9 2 Plan Every Day in Advance 14 3 Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything 20 4 Consider the Consequences 25 5 Practice Creative Procrastination 33 6 Use the ABCDE Method Continually 37 7 Focus on Key Result Areas 41 8 Apply the Law of Three 47 9 Prepare Thoroughly Before You Begin 56 10 Take It One Oil Barrel at a Time 60 11 Upgrade Your Key Skills 63 12 Leverage Your Special Talents 67 13 Identify Your Key Constraints 70 14 Put the Pressure on Yourself 76 15 Maximize Your Personal Powers 80 16 Motivate Yourself into Action 85 17 Get Out of the Technological Time Sinks 89 18 Slice and Dice the Task 97 19 Create Large Chunks of Time 101 20 Develop a Sense of Urgency 105 21 Single Handle Every Task 109 Conclusion: Putting It All Together 113 Index 119 Learning Resources of Brian Tracy International 123 About the Author 127 vii This page intentionally left blank Preface Thank you for picking up this book. I hope these ideas help you as much as they have helped me and thou- sands of others. In fact, I hope that this book changes your life forever. There is never enough time to do everything you have to do. You are literally swamped with work and per- sonal responsibilities, projects, stacks of magazines to read, and piles of books you intend to get to one of these days—as soon as you get caught up. But the fact is that you are never going to get caught up. You will never get on top of your tasks. You will never get far enough ahead to be able to get to all those books, magazines, and leisure time activities that you dream of. And forget about solving your time management problems by becoming more productive. No matter how many personal productivity techniques you master, there will always be more to do than you can ever ac- complish in the time you have available to you, no mat- ter 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. ix x eat that frog ! I have studied time management for more than thirty years. I have immersed myself in the works of Peter Drucker, Alec Mackenzie, Alan Lakein, Stephen Covey, and many, many others. I have read hundreds of books and thousands of articles on personal efﬁciency and effec- tiveness. This book is the result. Each time I came across a good idea, I tried it out in my own work and personal life. If it worked, I incorporated it into my talks and seminars and taught it to others. Galileo once wrote, “You cannot teach a man any- thing; you can only help him ﬁnd it within himself.” Depending upon your level of knowledge and expe- rience, these ideas may sound familiar. This book will bring them to a higher level of awareness. When you learn and apply these methods and techniques over and over until they become habits, you will alter the course of your life in a very positive way. The Power of Written Goals Let me tell you something about myself and the origins of this little book. I started off in life with few advan- tages, aside from a curious mind. I did poorly in school and left without graduating. I worked at laboring jobs for several years. My future did not appear promising. As a young man, I got a job on a tramp freighter and went off to see the world. For eight years, I traveled and worked and then traveled some more, eventually visiting more than eighty countries on ﬁve continents. Preface xi When I could no longer ﬁnd a laboring job, I got into sales, knocking on doors, working on straight commis- sion. I struggled from sale to sale until I began looking around me and asking, “Why is it that other people are doing better than I am?” Then I did something that changed my life. I began to ask successful people what they were doing that en- abled them to be more productive and earn more money than me. And they told me. I did what they advised me to do, and my sales went up. Eventually, I became so suc- cessful that I was made a sales manager. As a sales man- ager, I used the same strategy. I asked successful managers what they did to achieve such great results, and when they told me, I did it myself. In no time at all, I began to get the same results they did. This process of learning and applying what I had learned changed my life. I am still amazed at how sim- ple and obvious it is. Just ﬁnd out what other successful people do and do the same things until you get the same results. Learn from the experts. Wow! What an idea. Success Is Predictable Simply put, some people are doing better than others be- cause they do things differently and they do the right things right. Especially, successful, happy, prosperous peo- ple use their time far, far better than the average person. Coming from an unsuccessful background, I had de- veloped deep feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. I xii eat that frog ! had fallen into the mental trap of assuming that people who were doing better than me were actually better than me. What I learned was that this was not necessar- ily true. They were just doing things differently, and what they had learned to do, within reason, I could learn as well. This was a revelation to me. I was both amazed and excited with this discovery. I still am. I realized that I could change my life and achieve almost any goal I could set if I just found out what others were doing in that area and then did it myself until I got the same results they were getting. Within one year of starting in sales, I was a top sales- man. A year later I was made a manager. Within three years, I became a vice president in charge of a ninety- ﬁve-person sales force in six countries. I was twenty-ﬁve years old. Over the years, I have worked in twenty-two different jobs; started and built several companies; earned a busi- ness degree from a major university; learned to speak French, German, and Spanish; and been a speaker, trainer, or consultant for more than 1,000 companies. I currently give talks and seminars to more than 250,000 people each year, with audiences as large as 20,000 people. A Simple Truth Throughout my career, I have discovered and rediscov- ered a simple truth. The ability to concentrate single- Preface xiii mindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to ﬁnish it completely, is the key to great success, achieve- ment, respect, status, and happiness in life. This key in- sight is the heart and soul of this book. This book is written to show you how to get ahead more rapidly in your career and to simultaneously en- rich your personal life. These pages contain the twenty- one most powerful principles on personal effectiveness I have ever discovered. These methods, techniques, and strategies are practi- cal, proven, and fast acting. In the interest of time, I do not dwell on the various psychological or emotional explanations for procrastination or poor time manage- ment. There are no lengthy departures into theory or re- search. What you will learn are speciﬁc actions you can take immediately to get better, faster results in your work and to increase your happiness. Every idea in this book is focused on increasing your overall levels of productivity, performance, and output and on making you more valuable in whatever you do. You can apply many of these ideas to your personal life as well. Each of these twenty-one methods and techniques is complete in itself. All are necessary. One strategy might be effective in one situation and another might apply to another task. All together, these twenty-one ideas repre- sent a smorgasbord of personal effectiveness techniques that you can use at any time, in any order or sequence that makes sense to you at the moment. xiv eat that frog ! The key to success is action. These principles work to bring about fast, predictable improvements in per- formance and results. The faster you learn and apply them, the faster you will move ahead in your career— guaranteed! There will be no limit to what you can accomplish when you learn how to Eat That Frog! Brian Tracy Solana Beach, California October 2006 Introduction: Eat That Frog This is a wonderful time to be alive. There have never been more possibilities and opportunities for you to achieve more of your goals than exist today. As perhaps never before in human history, you are actually drowning in options. In fact, 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. If you are like most people today, you are over- whelmed with too much to do and too little time. As you struggle to get caught up, new tasks and responsibilities just keep rolling in, like the waves of the ocean. Because of this, you will never be able to do everything you have to do. You will never be caught up. You will always be be- hind in some of your tasks and responsibilities, and probably in many of them. The Need to Be Selective For this reason, and perhaps more than ever before, your ability to select your most important task at each mo- ment, and then to get started on that task and to get it done both quickly and well, will probably have more of an impact on your success than any other quality or skill you can develop. An average person who develops the habit of setting clear priorities and getting important tasks completed 1 2 eat that frog ! quickly will run circles around a genius who talks a lot and makes wonderful plans but who gets very little done. The Truth about Frogs Mark Twain once said that if the ﬁrst thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long. Your “frog” is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don't do something about it. It is also the one task that can have the greatest positive impact on your life and results at the moment. The ﬁrst rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one ﬁrst. This is another way of saying that if you have two important tasks before you, start with the biggest, hard- est, and most important task ﬁrst. Discipline yourself to begin immediately and then to persist until the task is complete before you go on to something else. Think of this as a test. Treat it like a personal chal- lenge. 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. Introduction: Eat That Frog 3 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. The key to reaching high levels of performance and productivity is to develop the lifelong habit of tackling your major task ﬁrst thing each morning. You must de- velop the routine of “eating your frog” before you do anything else and without taking too much time to think about it. Take Action Immediately In study after study of men and women who get paid more and promoted faster, the quality of “action orien- tation” stands out as the most observable and consistent behavior they demonstrate in everything they do. Suc- cessful, effective people are those who launch directly into their major tasks and then discipline themselves to work steadily and single-mindedly until those tasks are complete. In our world, and especially in our business world, you are paid and promoted for getting speciﬁc, measur- able results. You are paid for making a valuable contri- bution and especially for making the most important contribution that is expected of you. “Failure to execute” is one of the biggest problems in organizations today. Many people confuse activity with accomplishment. They talk continually, hold endless 4 eat that frog ! meetings, and make wonderful plans, but in the ﬁnal analysis, no one does the job and gets the results re- quired. Develop the Habits of Success Your success in life and work will be determined by the kinds of habits that you develop over time. The habit of setting priorities, overcoming procrastination, and get- ting 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 per- manent part of your behavior. Once it becomes a habit, it becomes both automatic and easy to do. This habit of starting and completing important tasks has an immediate and continuous payoff. 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. Whenever you complete a task of any size or impor- tance, 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. The completion of an important task triggers the re- lease of endorphins in your brain. These endorphins give you a natural “high.” The endorphin rush that follows successful completion of any task makes you feel more positive, personable, creative, and conﬁdent. Introduction: Eat That Frog 5 Develop a Positive Addiction Here is one of the most important of the so-called se- crets of success. You can actually develop a “positive ad- diction” to endorphins and to the feeling of enhanced clarity, conﬁdence, and competence that they trigger. When you develop this addiction, you will, at an un- conscious 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 actu- ally become addicted, in a very positive sense, to success and contribution. One of the keys to your living a wonderful life, hav- ing a successful career, and feeling terriﬁc about yourself is to develop the habit of starting and ﬁnishing impor- tant jobs. When you do, this behavior will take on a power of its own and you'll ﬁnd it easier to complete im- portant tasks than not to complete them. No Shortcuts You remember the story of the man who stops a musi- cian on a street in New York and asks how he can get to Carnegie Hall. The musician replies, “Practice, man, practice.” Practice is the key to mastering any skill. Fortunately, your mind is like a muscle. It grows stronger and more capable with use. With practice, you can learn any be- havior or develop any habit that you consider either de- sirable or necessary. 6 eat that frog ! The Three Ds of New Habit Formation You need three key qualities to develop the habits of focus and concentration, which are all learnable. They are decision, discipline, and determination. First, 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 be- comes a permanent part of your personality. Visualize Yourself as You Want to Be There is a special way that you can accelerate your pro- gress toward becoming the highly productive, effective, efﬁcient person that you want to be. It consists of your thinking continually about the rewards and beneﬁts of being an action-oriented, fast-moving, and focused per- son. See yourself as the kind of person who gets impor- tant jobs done quickly and well on a consistent basis. Your mental picture of yourself has a powerful effect on your behavior. Visualize yourself as the person you intend to be in the future. Your self-image, the way you see yourself on the inside, largely determines your per- formance on the outside. All improvements in your outer life begin with improvements on the inside, in your men- tal pictures. You have a virtually unlimited ability to learn and develop new skills, habits, and abilities. When you train Introduction: Eat That Frog 7 yourself, through repetition and practice, to overcome procrastination and get your most important tasks com- pleted quickly, you will move yourself onto the fast track in your life and career and step on the accelerator. Eat That Frog! This page intentionally left blank 1 Set the Table There is one quality that one must possess to win, and that is deﬁniteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants and a burning desire to achieve it. napoleon hill Before you can determine your “frog” and get on with the job of eating it, you have to decide exactly what you want to achieve in each area of your life. Clarity is per- haps the most important concept in personal productiv- ity. The number one reason why some people get more work done faster is because they are absolutely clear about their goals and objectives, and they don’t deviate from them. The greater clarity you have regarding what you want and the steps you will have to take to achieve it, the easier it will be for you to overcome procrastina- tion, eat your frog, and complete the task before you. A major reason for procrastination and lack of moti- vation is vagueness, confusion, and fuzzy-mindedness about what you are trying to do and in what order and for what reason. You must avoid this common condition with all your strength by striving for ever greater clarity in your major goals and tasks. 9 10 eat that frog ! Here is a great rule for success: Think on paper. Only about 3 percent of adults have clear, written goals. These people accomplish ﬁve and ten times as much as people of equal or better education and ability but who, for whatever reason, have never taken the time to write out exactly what they want. There is a powerful formula for setting and achieving goals that you can use for the rest of your life. It consists of seven simple steps. Any one of these steps can double and triple your productivity if you are not currently using it. Many of my graduates have increased their in- comes dramatically in a matter of a few years, or even a few months, with this simple, seven-part method. Step one: Decide exactly what you want. Either decide for yourself or sit down with your boss and discuss your goals and objectives until you are crystal clear about what is expected of you and in what order of priority. It is amazing how many people are working away, day after day, on low-value tasks because they have not had this critical discussion with their managers. One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all. Stephen Covey says, “Before you begin scrambling up the ladder of success, make sure that it is leaning against the right building.” Set the Table 11 Step two: Write it down. Think on paper. When you write down a goal, you crystallize it and give it tangible form. You create something that you can touch and see. On the other hand, a goal or objective that is not in writ- ing is merely a wish or a fantasy. It has no energy behind it. Unwritten goals lead to confusion, vagueness, misdi- rection, and numerous mistakes. Step three: Set a deadline on your goal; set subdeadlines if necessary. A goal or decision without a deadline has no urgency. It has no real beginning or end. Without a def- inite deadline accompanied by the assignment or accep- tance of speciﬁc responsibilities for completion, you will naturally procrastinate and get very little done. Step four: Make a list of everything that you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal. As you think of new activities, add them to your list. Keep build- ing your list until it is complete. A list gives you a visual picture of the larger task or objective. It gives you a track to run on. It dramatically increases the likelihood that you will achieve your goal as you have deﬁned it and on schedule. Step ﬁve: Organize the list into a plan. Organize your list by priority and sequence. Take a few minutes to de- cide 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. Even better, lay out your plan visually in the form of a series of boxes and circles on a sheet of paper, with lines and arrows show- ing the relationship of each task to each other task. 12 eat that frog ! You’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to achieve your goal when you break it down into individual tasks. With a written goal and an organized plan of action, you will be far more productive and efﬁcient than peo- ple who are carrying their goals around in their minds. Step six: Take action on your plan immediately. Do something. Do anything. An average plan vigorously ex- ecuted is far better than a brilliant plan on which noth- ing is done. For you to achieve any kind of success, execution is everything. Step seven: Resolve to do something every single day that moves you toward your major goal. Build this activity into your daily schedule. You may decide to read a speciﬁc number of pages on a key subject. You may call on a spe- ciﬁc number of prospects or customers. You may engage in a speciﬁc period of physical exercise. You may learn a certain number of new words in a foreign language. Whatever it is, you must never miss a day. Keep pushing forward. Once you start moving, keep moving. Don’t stop. This decision, this discipline alone, can dramatically increase your speed of goal accom- plishment and boost your personal productivity. The Power of Written Goals Clear written goals have a wonderful effect on your thinking. They motivate you and galvanize you into ac- tion. They stimulate your creativity, release your energy, and help you to overcome procrastination as much as any other factor. Set the Table 13 Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement. The bigger your goals and the clearer they are, the more ex- cited you become about achieving them. The more you think about your goals, the greater become your inner drive and desire to accomplish them. Think about your goals and review them daily. Every morning when you begin, take action on the most im- portant task you can accomplish to achieve your most important goal at the moment. eat that frog ! 1. Take a clean sheet of paper right now and make a list of ten goals you want to accomplish in the next year. Write your goals as though a year has already passed and they are now a reality. Use the present tense, positive voice, and first person so that they are immediately accepted by your subcon- scious mind. For example, you could write. “I earn x num- ber of dollars per year” or “I weigh x number of pounds” or “I drive such and such a car.” 2. Review your list of ten goals and select the one goal that, if you achieved it, would have the greatest positive impact on your life. Whatever that goal is, write it on a separate sheet of paper, set a deadline, make a plan, take action on your plan, and then do something every single day that moves you toward that goal. This exercise alone could change your life! 2 Plan Every Day in Advance Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now. alan lakein You have heard the old question, “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer is “One bite at a time!” How do you eat your biggest, ugliest frog? The same way; you break it down into speciﬁc step-by-step activi- ties and then you start on the ﬁrst one. Your mind, your ability to think, plan, and decide, is your most powerful tool for overcoming procrastination and increasing your productivity. Your ability to set goals, make plans, and take action on them determines the course of your life. The very act of thinking and plan- ning unlocks your mental powers, triggers your creativ- ity, and increases your mental and physical energies. Conversely, as Alec Mackenzie wrote, “Taking action without thinking things through is a prime source of prob- lems.” Your ability to make good plans before you act is a measure of your overall competence. The better the 14 Plan Every Day in Advance 15 plan you have, the easier it is for you to overcome pro- crastination, to get started, to eat your frog, and then to keep going. Increase Your Return on Energy One of your top goals at work should be for you to get the highest possible return on your investment of men- tal, emotional, and physical energy. The good news is that every minute spent in planning saves as many as ten minutes in execution. It takes only about 10 to 12 minutes for you to plan out your day, but this small in- vestment of time will save you up to two hours (100 to 120 minutes) in wasted time and diffused effort through- out the day. You may have heard of the Six-P Formula. It says, “Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.” When you consider how helpful planning can be in increasing your productivity and performance, it is amaz- ing how few people practice it every single day. And plan- ning is really quite simple to do. All you need is a piece of paper and a pen. The most sophisticated Palm Pilot, computer program, or time planner is based on the same principle. It is based on your sitting down and making a list of everything you have to do before you begin. Two Extra Hours per Day Always work from a list. When something new comes up, add it to the list before you do it. You can increase your productivity and output by 25 percent or more—about 16 eat that frog ! two hours a day—from the ﬁrst day that you begin work- ing consistently from a list. 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 every- thing that you have to do the next day. 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. The more time you take to make written lists of ev- erything you have to do, in advance, the more effective and efﬁcient you will be. Different Lists for Different Purposes You need different lists for different purposes. First, you should create a master list on which you write down everything you can think of that you want to do some- time in the future. This is the place where you capture every idea and every new task or responsibility that comes up. You can sort out the items later. Second, you should have a monthly list that you make at the end of the month for the month ahead. This may contain items transferred from your master list. Third, you should have a weekly list where you plan your entire week in advance. This is a list that is under construction as you go through the current week. Plan Every Day in Advance 17 This discipline of systematic time planning can be very helpful to you. Many people have told me that the habit of taking a couple of hours at the end of each week to plan the coming week has increased their productiv- ity dramatically and changed their lives completely. This technique will work for you as well. Finally, you should transfer items from your monthly and weekly lists onto your daily list. These are the spe- ciﬁc activities that you are going to accomplish the fol- lowing day. As you work through the day, tick off the items on your list as you complete them. This activity gives you a visual picture of accomplishment. It generates a feeling of success and forward motion. Seeing yourself working progressively through your list motivates and energizes you. It raises your self-esteem and self-respect. Steady, visible progress propels you forward and helps you to overcome procrastination. Planning a Project When you have a project of any kind, begin by making a list of every step that you will have to complete to ﬁn- ish the project from beginning to end. Organize the steps by priority and sequence. Lay out the project in front of you on paper or on a computer so that you can see every step and task. Then go to work on one task at a time. You will be amazed at how much you get done in this way. 18 eat that frog ! As you work through your lists, you will feel more and more effective and powerful. You will feel more in control of your life. You will be naturally motivated to do even more. You will think better and more creatively, and you will get more and better insights that enable you to do your work even faster. As you work steadily through your lists, you will de- velop a sense of positive forward momentum that en- ables you to overcome procrastination. This feeling of progress gives you more energy and keeps you going throughout the day. One of the most important rules of personal effec- tiveness is the 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. You only have to try this rule once to prove it to yourself. When you plan each day in advance, you will ﬁnd it much easier to get going and to keep going. The work will go faster and smoother than ever before. You will feel more powerful and competent. You will get more done faster than you thought possible. Eventually, you will become unstoppable. Plan Every Day in Advance 19 eat that frog ! 1. Begin today to plan every day, week, and month in advance. Take a notepad or sheet of paper (or use your PDA or BlackBerry) and make a list of everything you have to do in the next twenty-four hours. Add to your list as new items come up. Make a list of all your projects, the big multitask jobs that are important to your future. 2. Lay out each of your major goals, projects, or tasks by priority, what is most important, and by sequence, what has to be done first, what comes second, and so forth. Start with the end in mind and work backward. Think on paper! Always work from a list. You’ll be amazed at how much more productive you become and how much easier it is to eat your frog. 3 Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright. johann wolfgang von goethe The 80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It is also called the “Pareto Principle” after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who ﬁrst wrote about it in 1895. Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to divide naturally into what he called the “vital few,” the top 20 percent in terms of money and inﬂuence, and the “trivial many,” the bottom 80 percent. He later discovered that virtually all economic activ- ity was subject to this principle as well. For example, this principle says that 20 percent of your activities will ac- count 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 ac- count 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, 20 Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything 21 two of those items will turn out to be worth ﬁve or ten times or more than the other eight items put together. Number of Tasks versus Importance of Tasks Here is an interesting discovery. Each of the ten tasks may take the same amount of time to accomplish. But one or two of those tasks will contribute ﬁve or ten times the value of any of the others. Often, 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. Focus on Activities, Not Accomplishments You often see people who appear to be busy all day long but seem to accomplish very little. This is almost always because they are busy working on tasks that are of low value while they are procrastinating on the one or two activities that, if they completed them quickly and well, could make a real difference to their companies and to their careers. 22 eat that frog ! The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efﬁciently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must 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. Before you begin work, always ask yourself, “Is this task in the top 20 percent of my activities or in the bot- tom 80 percent?” Rule: Resist the temptation to clear up small things ﬁrst. Remember, whatever you choose to do over and over eventually becomes a habit that is hard to break. If you choose to start your day working on low-value tasks, you will soon develop the habit of always starting and work- ing on low-value tasks. This is not the kind of habit you want to develop or keep. The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the ﬁrst place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you will be naturally motivated to continue. A part of your mind loves to be busy work- ing on signiﬁcant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually. Motivate Yourself Just thinking about starting and ﬁnishing an important task motivates you and helps you to overcome procrasti- Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything 23 nation. The fact is that the amount of 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 the completion of something valuable and signiﬁ- cant. However, when you complete a low-value task using the same amount of time and energy, you get little or no satisfaction at all. Time management is really life management, per- sonal management. It is really taking control of the se- quence of events. Time management is having control over what you do next. And you are always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determi- nant of your success in life and work. Effective, productive people discipline themselves to start on the most important task that is before them. They force themselves to eat that frog, whatever it is. As a result, they accomplish vastly more than the average person and are much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well. 24 eat that frog ! eat that frog ! 1. Make a list of all the key goals, activities, projects, and responsibilities in your life today. Which of them are, or could be, in the top 10 or 20 percent of tasks that represent, or could represent, 80 or 90 percent of your results? 2. Resolve today that you are going to spend more and more of your time working in those few areas that can really make a difference in you life and career and less and less time on lower value activities. 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. orison swett marden The mark of the superior thinker is his or her ability to accurately predict the consequences of doing or not do- ing something. The potential consequences of any task or activity are the key determinants of how important a task really is to you and to your company. This way of evaluating the signiﬁcance of a task is how you deter- mine what your next frog really is. Dr. Edward Banﬁeld of Harvard University, after more than ﬁfty years of research, concluded that “long-time perspective” is the most accurate single predictor of up- ward social and economic mobility in America. Long- time perspective turns out to be more important than family background, education, race, intelligence, connec- tions, or virtually any other single factor in determining your success in life and at work. Your attitude toward time, your “time horizon,” has an enormous impact on your behavior and your choices. 25 26 eat that frog ! People who take a long view of their lives and careers al- ways 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. Successful people have a clear future orientation. They think ﬁve, ten, and twenty years out into the future. They analyze their choices and behaviors in the present to make sure that what they are doing today is consis- tent with the long-term future that they desire. Make Better Decisions about Time In your work, having a clear idea of what is really im- portant to you in the long term makes it much easier for you to make better decisions about your priorities in the short term. By deﬁnition, something that is important has long- term potential consequences. Something that is unim- portant has few or no long-term potential consequences. Before starting on anything, you should always ask your- self, “What are the potential consequences of doing or not doing this task?” Rule: Future intent inﬂuences and often determines present actions. Consider the Consequences 27 The clearer you are about your future intentions, the greater inﬂuence that clarity will have on what you do in the moment. With a clear long-term vision, you are much more capable of evaluating an activity in the pre- sent to ensure that it is consistent with where you truly want to end up. Think about the Long Term Successful people are those who are willing to delay grat- iﬁcation and make sacriﬁces in the short term so that they can enjoy far greater rewards in the long term. Un- successful people, on the other hand, think more about short-term pleasure and immediate gratiﬁcation while giving little thought to the long-term future. Denis Waitley, a motivational speaker, says, “Losers try to escape from their fears and drudgery with activi- ties that are tension-relieving. Winners are motivated by their desires toward activities that are goal-achieving.” For example, coming into work earlier, reading regularly in your ﬁeld, taking courses to improve your skills, and focusing on high-value tasks in your work will all com- bine to have an enormous positive impact on your fu- ture. On the other hand, coming into work at the last moment, reading the newspaper, drinking coffee, and socializing with your coworkers may seem fun and en- joyable in the short term but inevitably leads to lack of promotion, underachievement, and frustration in the long term. 28 eat that frog ! If a task or activity has large potential positive conse- quences, make it a top priority and get started on it im- mediately. If something can have large potential negative consequences if it is not done quickly and well, that becomes a top priority as well. Whatever your frog is, re- solve to gulp it down ﬁrst thing. Motivation requires motive. The greater the potential positive impact that an action or behavior of yours can have on your life, once you deﬁne it clearly, the more motivated you will be to overcome procrastination and get it done quickly. Keep yourself focused and forward moving by contin- ually starting and completing those tasks that can make a major difference to your company and to your future. 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. And where you end up is largely a matter of the amount of consid- eration you give to the likely consequences of your ac- tions in the short term. Thinking continually about the potential conse- quences of your choices, decisions, and behaviors is one of the very best ways to determine your true priorities in your work and personal life. Obey the Law of Forced Efﬁciency The law of Forced Efﬁciency says that “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.” Put another way, Consider the Consequences 29 you cannot eat every tadpole and frog in the pond, but you can eat the biggest and ugliest one, and that will be enough, at least for the time being. When you’re running out of time and know that the consequences of not completing a key task or project can be really serious, you always seem to ﬁnd the time to get it done, often at the very last minute. You start early, you stay late, and you drive yourself to complete the job rather than to face the unpleasantness that would follow if you didn’t complete it within the time limit. Rule: There will never be enough time to do everything you have to do. The average person in business today, especially a manager in the age of cutbacks, is working at 110 to 130 percent of capacity. And the jobs and responsibilities just keep piling up. We all have stacks of reading material we still have to go through. One recent study concluded that the average executive has 300 to 400 hours of read- ing and projects backlogged at home and at the ofﬁce. What this means is that you will never be caught up. Get that wishful idea out of your mind. All you can hope for is to be on top of your most important responsibili- ties. The others will just have to wait. Deadlines Are an Excuse Many people say that they work better under the pres- sure of deadlines. Unfortunately, years of research indi- cate that this is seldom true. 30 eat that frog ! Under the pressure of deadlines, often self-created through procrastination, people suffer greater stress, make more mistakes, and have to redo more tasks than under any other conditions. Often the mistakes that people make when working under tight deadlines lead to defects and cost overruns that lead to substantial ﬁnancial losses in the long term. Sometimes a job actually takes much longer to complete when people rush to get it done at the last minute and then have to redo it. It is much better to plan your time carefully in ad- vance and then build in a sizable buffer to compensate for unexpected delays and diversions. However much time you think a task will take, add on another 20 per- cent or more, or make a game of getting the job done well in advance of the deadline. You will be amazed at how much more relaxed you are and how much better a job you do. Three Questions for Maximum Productivity You can use three questions on a regular basis to keep yourself focused on completing your most important tasks on schedule. The ﬁrst question is, “What are my highest value activities?” Put another way, what are the biggest frogs that you have to eat to make the greatest contribution to your organization? to your family? to your life in general? This is one of the most important questions you can ask and answer. What are your highest-value activities? First, think this through for yourself. Then, ask your Consider the Consequences 31 boss. Ask your coworkers and subordinates. Ask your friends and family. Like focusing the lens of a camera, you must be crystal clear about your highest-value activ- ities before you begin work. The second question you can ask continually is, “What can I and only I do that if done well will make a real difference?” This question came from the late Peter Drucker, the management guru. It is one of the best of all questions for achieving personal effectiveness. What can you and only you do that if done well can make a real dif- ference? This is something that only you can do. If you don’t do it, it won’t be done by someone else. But if you do do it and you do it well, it can really make a difference to your life and your career. What is this particular frog for you? Every hour of every day, you can ask yourself this question and come up with a speciﬁc answer. Your job is to be clear about the answer and then to start and work on this task before anything else. The third question you can ask is, “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?” In other words, “What is my biggest frog of all at this moment?” This is the core question of time management. An- swering this question correctly is the key to overcoming procrastination and becoming a highly productive per- son. Every hour of every day, one task represents the most valuable use of your time at that moment. Your job is to ask yourself this question, over and over again, and to always be working on the answer to it, whatever it is. 32 eat that frog ! Do ﬁrst things ﬁrst and second things not at all. As Goethe said, “Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.” The more accurate your answers are to these three questions, the easier it will be for you to set clear priori- ties, to overcome procrastination, and to get started on that one activity that represents the most valuable use of your time. eat that frog ! 1. Review your list of tasks, activities, and projects reg- ularly. Continually ask yourself, “Which one project or ac- tivity, if I did it in an excellent and timely fashion, would have the greatest positive consequences in my work or personal life?” 2. Determine the most important thing you could be doing every hour of every day, and then discipline your- self to work continually on the most valuable use of your time. What is this for you right now? Whatever it is that can help you the most, set it as a goal, make a plan to achieve it, and go to work on your plan immediately. Remember the wonderful words of Goethe: “Only engage, and the mind grows heated. Begin it, and the work will be completed.” 5 Practice Creative Procrastination Make time for getting big tasks done every day. Plan your daily workload in advance. Single out the relatively few small jobs that absolutely must be done immediately in the morning. Then go directly to the big tasks and pursue them to completion. boardroom reports Creative procrastination is one of the most effective of all personal performance techniques. It can change your life. 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. Put off eating smaller or less ugly frogs. Eat the biggest and ugliest frogs before any- thing else. Do the worst ﬁrst! Everyone procrastinates. The difference between high performers and low performers is largely determined by what they choose to procrastinate on. Since you must procrastinate anyway, decide today to procrastinate on low-value activities. Decide to procras- tinate on, outsource, delegate, and eliminate those activ- ities that don’t make much of a contribution to your life in any case. Get rid of the tadpoles and focus on the frogs. 33 34 eat that frog ! Priorities versus Posteriorities Here is a key point. To set proper priorities, you must set posteriorities as well. 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. One of the most powerful of all words in time man- agement is the word no! Say it politely. Say it clearly so that there are no misunderstandings. Say it regularly as a normal part of your time management vocabulary. Say no to anything that is not a high-value use of your time and your life. Say no graciously but ﬁrmly to avoid agreeing to something against your will. Say it early and say it often. Remember that you have no spare time. As we say, “Your dance card is full.” For you to do something new, you must complete or stop doing something old. Getting in requires getting out. Picking up means putting down. Creative procrastination is the act of thoughtfully and deliberately deciding upon the exact things you are not going to do right now, if ever. Procrastinate on Purpose Most people engage in unconscious procrastination. They procrastinate without thinking about it. As a result, they Practice Creative Procrastination 35 procrastinate on the big, valuable, important tasks that can have signiﬁcant long-term consequences in their lives and careers. You must avoid this common tendency at all costs. Your job is to deliberately procrastinate on tasks that are of low value so that you have more time for tasks that can make a big difference in your life and work. Continually review your duties and responsibilities to identify time-consuming tasks and activities that you can abandon with no real loss. This is an ongoing re- sponsibility for you that never ends. For example, a friend of mine was an avid golfer when he was single. He liked to golf three or four times a week, three to four hours each time. Over a period of years, he started a business, got married, and had two children. But he still played golf three to four times a week until he ﬁnally realized that his time on the golf course was causing him enormous stress at home and at the ofﬁce. Only by abandoning most of his golf games could he get his life back under control. Set Posteriorities on Time-Consuming Activities Continually review your life and work to ﬁnd time- consuming tasks and activities that you can abandon. Cut down on television watching and instead spend the time with your family, read, exercise, or do something else that enhances the quality of your life. Look at your work activities and identify the tasks that you could delegate or eliminate to free up more 36 eat that frog ! time for the work that really counts. Begin today to prac- tice creative procrastination, to set posteriorities wher- ever and whenever you can. This decision alone can enable you to get your time and your life under control. eat that frog ! 1. Practice “zero-based thinking” in every part of your life. Ask yourself continually, “If I were not doing this al- ready, knowing what I now know, would I start doing it again today?” If it is something you would not start again today, knowing what you now know, it is a prime candidate for abandonment or creative procrastination. 2. Examine each of your personal and work activities and evaluate it based on your current situation. Select at least one activity to abandon immediately or at least deliberately put off until your more important goals have been achieved. 6 Use the ABCDE Method Continually 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. w i l l i a m m at h e w s The more thought you invest in planning and setting priorities before you begin, the more important things you will do and the faster you will get them done once you get started. The more important and valuable a task is to you, the more likely you will be motivated to over- come procrastination and launch yourself into the job. The ABCDE Method is a powerful priority setting technique that you can use every single day. This tech- nique is so simple and effective that it can, all by itself, make you one of the most efﬁcient and effective people in your ﬁeld. Think on Paper The power of this technique lies in its simplicity. Here’s how it works: You start with a list of everything you have to do for the coming day. Think on paper. 37 38 eat that frog ! You then place an A, B, C, D, or E next to each item on your list before you begin the ﬁrst task. An “A” item is deﬁned as something that is very im- portant, something that you must do. This is a task that will have serious positive or negative consequences if you do it or fail to do it, like visiting a key customer or ﬁnishing a report that your boss needs for an upcoming board meeting. These items are the frogs of your life. If you have more than one A task, you prioritize these tasks by writing “A-1,” “A-2,” “A-3,” and so on in front of each item. Your A-1 task is your biggest, ugliest frog of all. “Shoulds” versus “Musts” A “B” item is deﬁned as a task that you should do. But it has only mild consequences. These are the tadpoles of your work life. This means that someone may be un- happy or inconvenienced if you don’t do one of these tasks, but it is nowhere as important as an A task. Re- turning an unimportant telephone message or reviewing your e-mail would be a B task. The rule is that you should never do a B task when an A task is left undone. You should never be distracted by a tadpole when a big frog is sitting there waiting to be eaten. A “C” task is deﬁned as something that would be nice to do but for which there are no consequences at all, whether you do it or not. C tasks include phoning a friend, having coffee or lunch with a coworker, and com- Use the ABCDE Method Continually 39 completing some personal business during work hours. These sorts of activities have no affect at all on your work life. A “D” task is deﬁned as something you can delegate to someone else. The rule is that you should delegate ev- erything that someone else can do so that you can free up more time for the A tasks that only you can do. An “E” task is deﬁned as something that you can elim- inate altogether, and it won’t make any real difference. This may be a task that was important at one time but is no longer relevant to you or anyone else. Often it is something you continue to do out of habit or because you enjoy it. But every minute that you spend on an E task is time taken away from a task or activity that can make a real difference in your life. After you have applied the ABCDE Method to your list, you will be completely organized and ready to get more important things done faster. Take Action Immediately The key to making this ABCDE Method work is for you to now discipline yourself to start immediately on your A-1 task and then stay at it until it is complete. Use your willpower to get going and stay going on this one job, the most important single task you could possibly be doing. Eat the whole frog and don’t stop until it’s ﬁn- ished completely. Your ability to think through and analyze your work list and determine your A-1 task is the springboard to 40 eat that frog ! higher levels of accomplishment and greater self-esteem, self-respect, and personal pride. When you develop the habit of concentrating on your A-1, most important, activity—on eating your frog—you will start getting more done than any two or three people around you. eat that frog ! 1. Review your work list right now and put an A, B, C, D, or E next to each task or activity. Select your A-1 job or project and begin on it immediately. Discipline yourself to do nothing else until this one job is complete. 2. Practice this ABCDE Method every day for the next month on every work or project list before you begin work. After a month, you will have developed the habit of setting and working on your highest-priority tasks, and your future will be assured! 7 Focus on Key Result Areas When every physical and mental resource is focused, one’s power to solve a problem multiplies tremendously. norman vincent peale “Why am I on the payroll?” This is one of the most im- portant questions you can ever ask and answer, over and over again, throughout your career. As it happens, most people are not sure exactly why they are on the payroll. But if you are not crystal clear about why you are on the payroll and what results you have been hired to accomplish, it is very hard for you to perform at your best, get paid more, and get promoted faster. In simple terms, you have been hired to get speciﬁc re- sults. A wage or a salary is a payment for a speciﬁc qual- ity and quantity of work that can be combined with the work of others to create a product or service that cus- tomers are willing to pay for. Your job can be broken down into about ﬁve to seven key result areas, seldom more. These represent the results that you absolutely, positively have to get to fulﬁll your 41 42 eat that frog ! responsibilities and make your maximum contribution to your organization. A key result area is deﬁned as something for which you are completely responsible. If you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. A key result area is an activity that is under your control. It produces an output that becomes an input or a contributing factor to the work of others. Key result areas are similar to the vital functions of the body, such as those indicated by blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and brain-wave activity. An absence of any one of these vital functions leads to the death of the organism. By the same token, your failure to perform in a critical result area of your work can lead to the end of your job as well. The Big Seven in Management and Sales The key result areas of management are planning, orga- nizing, stafﬁng, delegating, supervising, measuring, and reporting. These are the areas in which a manager must get results to succeed in his or her area of responsibility. A weakness in any one of these areas can lead to under- achievement and failure as a manager. The key result areas of sales are prospecting, building rapport and trust, identifying needs, presenting persua- sively, answering objections, closing the sale, and getting resales and referrals. Poor performance in any one of these key skills can lead to lower sales and sometimes the failure of a salesperson. Focus on Key Result Areas 43 Whatever you do, you must have certain essential skills for you to do your job in an excellent fashion. These demands are constantly changing. You have de- veloped core competencies that make it possible for you to do your job in the ﬁrst place. But certain key results are central to your work and determine your success or failure in your job. What are they? Clarity Is Essential The starting point of high performance is for you to iden- tify the key result areas of your work. Discuss them with your boss. Make a list of your most important output re- sponsibilities, and make sure that the people above you, on the same level as you, and below you are in agreement with it. For example, for a salesperson, getting qualiﬁed ap- pointments is a key result area. This activity is the key to the entire sales process. Closing a sale is a key result area. When the sale is made, it triggers the activities of many other people to produce and deliver the product or service. For a company owner or key executive, negotiating a bank loan may be a key result area. Hiring the right peo- ple and delegating effectively are both key result areas. For a receptionist or secretary, typing letters and answer- ing the phone and transferring callers quickly and efﬁ- ciently are deﬁned as key result areas. People’s ability to perform these tasks quickly and efﬁciently largely deter- mines their pay and promotability. 44 eat that frog ! Give Yourself a Grade Once you have determined your key result areas, the sec- ond step is for you to grade yourself on a scale of one to ten (with one being the lowest and ten being the high- est) in each of those areas. Where are you strong and where are you weak? Where are you getting excellent re- sults and where are you underperforming? Rule: Your weakest key result area sets the height at which you can use all your other skills and abilities. This rule says that although you could be excep- tional in six out of your seven key result areas, poor per- formance in the seventh area will hold you back and determine how much you achieve with all your other skills. This weakness will act as a drag on your effective- ness and be a constant source of friction and frustration. For example, delegating is a key result area for a man- ager. This skill is the key leverage point that enables a manager to manage, to get results through others. A manager who cannot delegate properly is held back from using all his or her other skills at the maximum levels of effectiveness. Poor delegation skills alone can lead to fail- ure in the job. Poor Performance Produces Procrastination One of the major reasons for procrastination in the work- place is that people avoid jobs and activities in those areas Focus on Key Result Areas 45 where they have performed poorly in the past. Instead of setting a goal and making a plan to improve in a partic- ular area, most people avoid that area altogether, which just makes the situation worse. The reverse of this is that the better you become in a particular skill area, the more motivated you will be to perform that function, the less you will procrastinate, and the more determined you will be to get the job ﬁnished. The fact is that everybody has both strengths and weaknesses. Refuse to rationalize, justify, or defend your areas of weakness. Instead, identify them clearly. Set a goal and make a plan to become very good in each of those areas. Just think! You may be only one critical skill away from top performance at your job. The Great Question 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 pos- itive impact on my career?” You should use this question to guide your career for the rest of your life. Look into yourself for the answer. You probably know what it is. Ask your boss this question. Ask your coworkers. Ask your friends and your family. Whatever the answer is, ﬁnd out and then go to work to bring up your perfor- mance in this area. The good news is that all business skills are learnable. If anyone else is excellent in that particular key result 46 eat that frog ! area, this is proof that you can become excellent as well, if you decide to. One of the fastest and best ways to stop procrasti- nating and get more things done faster is for you to be- come absolutely excellent in your key result areas. This can be as important as anything else you do in your life or your career. eat that frog ! 1. Identify the key result areas of your work. What are they? Write down the key results you have to get to do your job in an excellent fashion. Give yourself a grade from one to ten on each one. And then determine the one key skill that, if you did it in an excellent manner, would help you the most in your work. 2. Take this list to your boss and discuss it with him or her. Invite honest feedback and appraisal. You can get bet- ter only when you are open to the constructive input of other people. Discuss your results with your staff and coworkers. Talk them over with your spouse. Make a habit of doing this analysis regularly for the rest of your career. Never stop improving. This decision alone can change your life. 8 Apply the Law of Three Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. theodore roosevelt Three core tasks that you perform contain most of the value that you contribute to your business or organiza- tion. Your ability to accurately identify these three key tasks and then to focus on them most of the time is es- sential for you to perform at your best. Let me tell you a true story. Three months after her ﬁrst full-day coaching session with me in San Diego, Cynthia stood up and told the group a story. She said, “When I came here ninety days ago, you claimed that you would show me how to dou- ble my income and double my time off within twelve months. This sounded completely unrealistic, but I was willing to give it a try. “On the ﬁrst day, you asked me to write down a list of everything that I did over the course of a week or a month. I came up with seventeen tasks that I was re- sponsible for. My problem was that I was completely 47 48 eat that frog ! overwhelmed with work. I was working ten to twelve hours per day, six days per week, and not spending enough time with my husband and my two young chil- dren. But I didn’t see any way out. “I had been working for eight years for a fast-growing entrepreneurial company in the high-tech area, but there always seemed to be an overwhelming amount of work to do and never enough time.” One Thing All Day Long She continued with her story. “Once I had made up this list, you then told me to ask this question: ‘If you could do only one thing on this list all day long, which one task would contribute the greatest value to your com- pany?’ Once I had identiﬁed that task, which was quite easy, I put a circle around that number. “You then asked, ‘If you could do only one more thing on your list of key tasks, which would be the sec- ond activity that contributes the most value to your company?’ “Once I had identiﬁed the second most important task, you asked me the same question with regard to the third most important task. “You then said something that shocked me at the time. You said that fully 90 percent of the value that you contribute to your company is contained in those three tasks, whatever they are. Everything else you do is either a support task or a complementary task that could proba- bly be delegated, downsized, outsourced, or eliminated.” Apply the Law of Three 49 Take Immediate Action Cynthia continued with her story. “As I looked at the three tasks, I realized that these were the three things that I did that contributed the most value to my com- pany. This was on a Friday. On Monday morning at 10 o’clock, I met with my boss and explained to him what I had discovered. I told him that I needed his help in del- egating and outsourcing all my work except for those three key tasks. I felt that if I could work on those three tasks exclusively, all day long, I could more than double my contribution to the company. Then I said to him that if I doubled my contribution, I would like to be paid twice as much.” She said, “My boss was completely silent. He looked at my list of key tasks, looked back up at me, looked at the list again, and then said, ‘Okay.’ It was now 10:21 a.m. according to the clock on the wall behind him. “He said, ‘You’re right. These are the three most im- portant things that you do in this company—and the three things that you do the best. I will help you to del- egate and downsize all these other minor tasks to free you up to work full-time on these three key tasks. And if you double your contribution, I will pay you twice as much.’” Transform Your Life Cynthia concluded her story by saying, “He did; then I did; then he did. He helped me delegate and assign my 50 eat that frog ! minor tasks so I could concentrate on my top three jobs. As a result, I doubled my output over the next thirty days, and he doubled my income. “I had been working very hard for more than eight years, and I doubled my income in just one month by fo- cusing all my time and energy on my three key tasks. Not only that, but instead of working ten and twelve hour days, I work from 8:00 to 5:00 and spend time in the evenings and on the weekends with my husband and my children. Focusing on my key tasks has trans- formed my life.” Perhaps the most important word in the world of work is contribution. Your rewards, both ﬁnancial and emotional, will always be in direct proportion to your re- sults, to the value of your contribution. If you want to increase your rewards, you must focus on increasing the value of what you do. You must dedicate yourself to con- tributing more results to your company. And three key tasks always contribute the most. The Quick List Method Here is an exercise that we use with our coaching clients very early in the process. We give them a sheet of paper and then tell them, “In thirty seconds, write down your three most important goals in life right now.” We have found that when people have only thirty seconds to write their three most important goals, their answers are as accurate as if they had thirty minutes or three hours. Their subconscious minds seem to go into a Apply the Law of Three 51 form of “hyperdrive,” and their three most important goals pop out of their heads and onto the paper, often to the surprise of the people doing the exercise. In 80 percent or more of cases, 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. And this is as it should be. These are the three most important areas of life. If you give yourself a grade on a scale of one to ten in each of these three areas, you can immediately identify where you are doing well in life and where you need some improvement. Try it your- self and see. Give this exercise to your spouse or your chil- dren. The answers can be quite revealing. Later in our coaching program, we expand this exer- cise 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 rela- tionship 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 com- munity goals right now? 7. What are your three biggest problems or concerns in life right now? 52 eat that frog ! When you force yourself to ask and answer each of these questions in thirty seconds or less, you will often be amazed at the answers. Whatever your answers, they will usually be an accurate snapshot of your true situa- tion in life at the moment. These answers will tell you what is really important to you. While you are setting goals and priorities, getting or- ganized, concentrating single-mindedly on one task at a time, and disciplining yourself to complete your most important tasks, you must never forget that your ulti- mate goal is to live a long, happy, and healthy life. Time Management Is a Means to an End The main reason to develop time management skills is so that you can complete everything that is really im- portant in your work and free up more and more time to do the things in your personal life that give you the greatest happiness and satisfaction. Fully 85 percent of your happiness in life will come from happy relationships with other people, especially those closest to you, as well as the members of your fam- ily. The critical determinant of the quality of your rela- tionships is the amount of time that you spend face-to-face with the people you love, and who love you in return. The purpose of time management—of eating that frog—and getting more done in less time is to enable you to spend more “face time” with the people you care Apply the Law of Three 53 about, doing the things that give you the greatest amount of joy in life. 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 keep your job. Even worse, time that you waste at work often has to be taken away from the members of your family. You have to either stay late or take work home and work in the evenings. By not working effectively and efﬁciently during your workday, you create unnecessary stress and deprive the members of your family of the very best per- son you can possibly be. There is a story of a little girl who goes to her mother and asks, “Mommy, why does Daddy bring a briefcase full of work home each night and never spend any time with the family?” The mother replies sympathetically, “Well, honey, you have to understand—Daddy can’t get his work done at the ofﬁce so he has to bring it home and get caught up here.” The little girl then asks, “If 54 eat that frog ! that’s the case, why don’t they put him in a slower class?” Balance Is Not Optional One of the most famous sayings of the ancient Greeks was “Moderation in all things.” You need balance between your work and your personal life. You need to set priori- ties at work and concentrate on your most valuable tasks. At the same time, you must never lose sight of the fact that the reason for working efﬁciently is so that you can enjoy a higher quality of life at home with your family. Sometimes people come up to me and ask, “How do I achieve balance between my work and my home life?” I ask them in return, “How often does a tightrope walker balance when on the high wire?” After a few sec- onds of thinking, they almost always say, “All the time.” I say, “That is the same situation with balance between work and home life. You have to do it all the time. You never reach a point where you have attained it perfectly. You have to work at it.” Your goal should be to perform at your very best at work—to get the very most done and enjoy the very highest level of rewards possible for you in your career. Simultaneously, you must always remember to “smell the ﬂowers along the way.” Never lose sight of the real reasons why you work as hard as you do and why you are so determined to accomplish the very most with the time that you invest. The more time you spend face-to- face with the people you love, the happier you will be. Apply the Law of Three 55 eat that frog ! 1. Determine the three most important tasks that you do in your work. Ask yourself, “If I could do only one thing all day long, which one task would contribute the great- est value to my career?” Do this exercise two more times. Once you have identified your “big three,” con- centrate on them single-mindedly all day long. 2. Identify your three most important goals in each area of your life. Organize them by priority. Make plans for their accomplishment, and work on your plans every single day. You will be amazed at what you achieve in the months and years ahead. 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. j a m e s t. m cc ay One of the best ways for you to overcome procrastina- tion and get more things done faster is to have every- thing you need at hand before you begin. When you are fully prepared, you are like a cocked gun or an archer with an arrow pulled back taut in the bow. You will be amazed at what you achieve in the months and years ahead. You just need one small mental push to get started on your highest value tasks. This is like getting everything ready to prepare a com- plete meal, such as a big frog. You set all the ingredients out on the counter in front of you and then begin putting the meal together, one step at a time. Begin by clearing off your desk or workspace so that you have only one task in front of you. If necessary, put everything on the ﬂoor or on a table behind you. Gather all the information, reports, details, papers, and work materials that you will require to complete the job. Have 56 Prepare Thoroughly Before You Begin 57 them at hand so you can reach them without getting up or moving much. Be sure that you have all the writing materials, com- puter disks, access codes, e-mail addresses, and every- thing else you need to start working and continue working until the job is done. Set up your work area so that it is comfortable, at- tractive, and conducive to working for long periods. Es- pecially, make sure that you have a comfortable chair that supports your back and allows your feet to rest ﬂat on the ﬂoor. Create a Comfortable Workspace The most productive people take the time to create a work area where they enjoy spending time. The cleaner and neater your work area before you begin, the easier it will be for you to get started and keep going. One of the great techniques for overcoming procras- tination (eating frogs) is for you to get everything that you need to work completely ready, in advance. When everything is laid out neatly and in sequence, you will feel much more like getting on with the job. Get On with the Job It is amazing how many books never get written, how many degrees never get completed, how many life- changing tasks never get started because people fail to take the ﬁrst step of preparing everything in advance. 58 eat that frog ! Los Angeles attracts people from all over America who dream of writing a successful movie script and sell- ing it to one of the studios. They move to Los Angeles and work at low-level jobs for years while they dream of writing and selling a popular script. The Los Angeles Times once sent a reporter out onto Wilshire Boulevard to interview passersby. When people came along, he asked them one question: “How is your script coming?” Three out of four passersby replied, “Al- most done!” The sad fact is that “almost done” probably meant “not yet started.” Don’t let this happen to you. Launch toward Your Dreams Once you have completed your preparations, it is essen- tial that you launch immediately toward your goals. Get started. Do the ﬁrst thing, whatever it is. My personal rule is “Get it 80 percent right and then correct it later.” Run it up the ﬂagpole and see if anyone salutes. 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 biggest enemies we have to overcome on the road to success are not a lack of ability and a lack of op- portunity but fears of failure and rejection and the doubts that they trigger. The only way to overcome your fears is to “do the thing you fear,” as Emerson wrote, “and the death of fear is certain.” Wayne Gretzky, the great hockey player, once said, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” Once Prepare Thoroughly Before You Begin 59 you have completed your preparations, have the courage to take the ﬁrst action, and everything else will follow from that. The way you develop the courage you need is to act as if you already had the courage and behave accordingly. Take the First Step When you sit down with everything in front of you, ready to go, assume the body language of high perfor- mance. Sit up straight; sit forward and away from the back of the chair. Carry yourself as though you were an efﬁcient, effective, high-performing personality. Then, pick up the ﬁrst item and say to yourself, “Let’s get to work!” and plunge in. And once you’ve started, keep going until the job is ﬁnished. eat that frog ! 1. Take a good look at your desk or ofﬁce, both at home and at the ofﬁce. Ask yourself, “What kind of a person works in an environment like that?” The cleaner and neater your work environment, the more positive, productive, and confident you feel. 2. Resolve today to clean up your desk and office com- pletely so that you feel effective, efficient, and ready to get going each time you sit down to work. 10 Take It One Oil Barrel at a Time Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time. samuel smiles There is an old saying that “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. One of the best ways to eat a large frog is for you to take it one bite at a time. Lao-tzu wrote, “A journey of a thousand leagues be- gins with a single step.” This is a great strategy for over- coming procrastination and getting more things done faster. Crossing a Great Desert Many years ago, driving an old Land Rover, I crossed the heart of the Sahara Desert, the Tanezrouft, deep in modern-day Algeria. By that time, the desert had been 60 Take It One Oil Barrel at a Time 61 abandoned by the French for years, and the original re- fueling stations were empty and shuttered. The desert was 500 miles across in a single stretch, without water, food, a blade of grass, or even a ﬂy. It was totally ﬂat, like a broad, yellow sand parking lot that stretched to the horizon in all directions. More than 1,300 people had perished in the crossing of that stretch of the Sahara in previous years. Often, drifting sands had obliterated the track across the desert, and the travelers had gotten lost in the night, never to be found again alive. To counter this lack of features in the terrain, the French had marked the track with black, ﬁfty-ﬁve-gallon oil drums every ﬁve kilometers, which was exactly the distance to the horizon, formed by the curvature of the earth. Because of this, in the daytime, we could see two oil barrels—the one we had just passed and the one ﬁve kilometers ahead of it. And that was all we needed to stay on course. All we had to do was to steer for the next oil barrel. As a result, we were able to cross the biggest desert in the world by simply taking it “one oil barrel at a time.” Take It One Step at a Time In the same way, you can accomplish the biggest task in your life by disciplining yourself to take it just one step at a time. Your job is to go as far as you can see. You will then see far enough to go further. 62 eat that frog ! To accomplish a great task, you must step out in faith and have complete conﬁdence that your next step will soon become clear to you. Remember this wonderful ad- vice: “Leap—and the net will appear!” 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 lit- tle less and exercising a little more, day after day and month after month. You can overcome procrastination and accomplish extraordinary things by taking just the ﬁrst step, getting started toward your goal, and then taking it one step, one oil barrel, at a time. eat that frog ! 1. Select any goal, task, or project in your life on which you have been procrastinating and make a list of all the steps you will need to take to eventually complete the task. 2. Then take just one step immediately. Sometimes all you need to do to get started is to sit down and complete one item on the list. And then do one more, and so on. You will be amazed at what you eventually accomplish. 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 Upgrading your skills is one of the most important per- sonal productivity principles of all. Learn what you need to learn so that you can do your work in an excellent fashion. The better you become at eating a particular type of frog, the more likely you are to just plunge in and get it done. A major reason for procrastination is a feeling of in- adequacy, a lack of conﬁdence, or an inability in a key area of a task. Feeling weak or deﬁcient in a single area is enough to discourage you from starting the job at all. 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. As Pat Riley, the basketball coach, said, “Anytime you stop striving to get better, you’re bound to get worse.” 63 64 eat that frog ! Never Stop Learning One of the most helpful of all time management tech- niques is for you to get better at your key tasks. Personal and professional improvement is one of the best time savers there is. The better you are at a key task, the more motivated you are to launch into it. The better you are, the more energy and enthusiasm you have. When you know that you can do a job well, you ﬁnd it easier to overcome procrastination and get the job done faster and better than under any other circumstances. One piece of information or one additional skill can make an enormous difference in your ability to do the job well. 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. Refuse to allow a weakness or a lack of ability in any area to hold you back. Everything is learnable. And what others have learned, you can learn as well. When I began to write my ﬁrst book, I was discour- aged because I could use only the hunt-and-peck method of typing. I soon realized that I had to learn to touch-type if I was ever going to write and rewrite a 300-page book. So I bought a touch-typing program for my computer and practiced for twenty to thirty minutes every day for three months. By the end of that time, I was typing forty Upgrade Your Key Skills 65 to ﬁfty words per minute. With this additional skill, I have been able to write more than forty books that have now been published all over the world. The best news is that you can learn whatever skills you need to be more productive and more effective. You can become a touch typist if necessary. You can become proﬁcient with a computer. You can become a terriﬁc ne- gotiator or a super salesperson. You can learn to speak in public. You can learn to write effectively and well. These are all skills you can acquire as soon as you decide to and make them a priority. Three Steps to Mastery First, read in your ﬁeld for at least one hour every day. Get up a little earlier in the morning and read for thirty to sixty minutes in a book or magazine that contains in- formation that can help you to be more effective and productive at what you do. Second, take every course and seminar available on the key skills that can help you. Attend the conventions and business meetings of your profession or occupation. Go to the sessions and workshops. Sit up front and take notes. Purchase the audio recordings of the programs. Dedicate yourself to becoming one of the most knowl- edgeable and competent people in your ﬁeld. Third, listen to audio programs in your car. The av- erage car owner sits behind the wheel 500 to 1,000 hours each year while driving from place to place. Turn driving time into learning time. You can become one of the 66 eat that frog ! smartest, most capable, and highest paid people in your ﬁeld simply by listening to educational audio programs as you drive around. The more you learn and know, the more conﬁdent and motivated you feel. The better you become, the more capable you will be of doing even more in your ﬁeld. The more you learn, the more you can learn. Just as you can build your physical muscles through physical exercise, you can build your mental muscles with men- tal exercises. And there is no limit to how far or how fast you can advance except for the limits you place on your own imagination. eat that frog ! 1. Resolve today to become a “do-it-to-yourself ” proj- ect. Become a lifelong student of your craft. School is never out for the professional. 2. Identify the key skills that can help you the most to achieve better and faster results. Determine the core competencies that you will need to have in the future to lead your field. Whatever they are, set a goal, make a plan, and begin developing and increasing your ability in those areas. Decide to be the very best at what you do! 12 Leverage Your Special Talents Do your work; not just your work and no more, but a little more for the lavishing’s sake—that little more which is worth all the rest. dean briggs You are remarkable! You have special talents and abilities that make you different from every other person who has ever lived. There are frogs you can eat, or learn to eat, that can make you one of the most important peo- ple in your business or organization. There are certain things that you can do, or learn to do, that can make you extraordinarily valuable to your- self and to others. Your job is to identify your special areas of uniqueness and then to commit yourself to be- coming very, very good in those areas. Increase Your Earning Ability Your most valuable asset in terms of cash ﬂow is your earning ability. Your ability to work enables you to bring tens of thousands of dollars into your life every year by simply applying your knowledge and skills to your 67 68 eat that frog ! world. This is your ability to eat speciﬁc frogs faster and better than others. You could lose everything you own—your house, your car, your job, your bank account—but as long as you still had your earning ability, you could make it all back and more besides. Take stock of your unique talents and abilities on a regular basis. What is it that you do especially well? What are you good at? What do you do easily and well that is difﬁcult for other people? Looking back at your career, what has been most responsible for your success in life and work to date? What have been the most sig- niﬁcant frogs you have eaten in the past? Do What You Love to Do You are designed such that you will most enjoy doing the very things that you can be the very best at. What is it that you enjoy the most about your work? What kind of frogs do you most enjoy eating? The very fact that you enjoy something means that you probably have within yourself the capability to be excellent in that area. One of your great responsibilities in life is for you to decide for yourself what you really love to do and then to throw your whole heart into doing that special thing very, very well. Look at your various tasks and responsibilities. What is it that you do that gets you the most compliments and praise from other people? What do you do that posi- tively affects the work and performance of other people more than anything else? Leverage Your Special Talents 69 Successful people are invariably those who have taken the time to identify what they do well and most enjoy. They know what they do that really makes a dif- ference in their work, and they then concentrate on that task or area of activity exclusively. You should always focus your best energies and abili- ties on starting and completing those key tasks that your unique talents and abilities enable you to do well and that make a signiﬁcant contribution. You cannot do every- thing, but you can do those few things in which you ex- cel, the few things that can really make a difference. eat that frog ! 1. 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?” If you won the lottery or came into an enormous amount

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