EAT THAT FROG!

BRIAN TRACY

Every year, we all set goals and resolutions for ourselves. It's only natural to want to better ourselves and our lives. But after a few months, it can be disheartening to realize that we've fallen off track. I recently experienced this and realized that the root cause was my laziness and tendency to procrastinate. I knew that I needed to find a way to overcome this bad habit, but I wasn't sure where to start. That's when I came across a book called "Eat That Frog!". I am not a fan of self-help books, but this one really spoke to me. It offers strategies for beating procrastination and getting things done more efficiently. Some of the tips may seem obvious, but I found that they were still incredibly helpful. Sometimes we just need a little bit of inspiration to get us back on track. And that's exactly what "Eat That Frog!" provided for me.
Have you ever heard of the saying, "If the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you're done with the worst thing you'll have to do all day"? Well, in this book, the author uses eating a frog as a metaphor for most challenging tasks. The book contains twenty-one chapters, each presenting a different strategy for overcoming procrastination and increasing productivity, especially for a professional. The methods outlined in the book are simple to learn and, when practised consistently, can be incredibly effective. Here is the summary of some of these chapters that I personally found very much doable and effective.

Set the timetable: A major reason for procrastination and lack of motivation is confusion about what you are trying to do and in what order and for what reason. So great rule of success is to think on paper. Clear written goals motivate you and galvanize you into action. Firstly decide and write down your goals on paper. Use present tense and positive voice so they will be accepted by the subconscious mind. Set a proper deadline for your goal. Jot down the tasks and subtasks to achieve the goal. Organize the tasks by priority. Once the plan is ready, start the execution immediately. Don't wait for the 'perfect' time to start. Keep pushing forward. Review the goals daily on the paper. This decision alone will boost your productivity. 

Plan every day in advance: "Taking action without thinking things through is a prime source of problems". The better the plan you have, the easier it is for you to overcome procrastination. Use the six P formula-"Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance". If you spend 10 per cent of the time planning and organizing your work before you begin, it will save as much as 90 per cent of the time in getting the job done.

Apply the 80/20 rule to everything: 80/20 is called the 'Pareto principle'. 20 per cent of your tasks will account for 80 per cent of the value of what you do. If you have a list of 10 tasks on a to-do, two of those items will turn out to be worth much more than the other eight items put together. And those are the two frogs(tasks) that you should eat first! Most often people keep themselves busy working on tasks that are low value while they procrastinate on vital few. Hence, we should ask ourselves, "Is this task in the top 20 per cent of my activity ?"Resist the temptation to clear up small things first. 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.

Practice creative procrastination: Everyone procrastinates. The difference between low performers and high performers is largely determined by what they choose to procrastinate on. Decide to procrastinate on, outsource, delegate, and eliminate those activities that don't make many contributions to your life in any case. One of the most powerful of all words in time management is the word NO! Creative procrastination is an act of thoughtfully and deliberately deciding upon exact things you are not going to do right now, if ever. Say no to everything that is not absolutely vital.

Use the ABCDE method: ABCDE method is a powerful priority-setting technique that you can use every single day. An 'A' item is defined as something very potent, something that you must do. A 'B' task is defined as a task that you should do. The rule is that you should never do a B task when A task is left undone. A 'C' task is something that would be nice to do but there are no consequences at all, whether you do it or not. And so on. Discipline yourself to do nothing else until one job is complete.

Take it one oil barrel at a time: There is an old saying, "By the yard it's hard; but inch by inch, anything's a cinch!" One of the best ways to overcome procrastination is to get your mind off the huge task in front of you and focus on a single action that you can take. A journey of thousand leagues begins with a single step. Select a goal or task on which you have been procrastinating and make a list of all the steps you will need to take eventually to complete the task. And, you can accomplish extraordinary things by taking just the first step, getting started towards your goal and then taking one step, one barrel, at a time.

Motivate yourself into action: Most of your emotions, positive or negative are determined by how you talk to yourself on a minute-to-minute basis. To keep yourself motivated, you must resolve to become a complete optimist. To overcome the feeling of self-doubt or fear, continually tell yourself, "I can do it!" You should talk to yourself positively all the time to boost your self-esteem. Keep your mind positive by accepting complete responsibility for yourself and for everything that happens to you. Refuse to criticize others, complain, or blame others for anything. Resolve to make progress rather than an excuse. And, the more positive and motivated you feel, the more eager you will be to get started and the more determined you will be to keep going.

Technology is a terrible Master: Technology can be your best friend or your worst enemy. People wake up in the morning and obsessively check all their phone notifications before leaving their beds. This compulsion to stay plugged in leaves us all physiologically breathless.  The key solution is to keep your relationship with technology under control. For you to stay calm, clear-headed and capable of performing at your best, detach regularly from the technology that overwhelms you. Instead of becoming a slave of technology, make it a slave. Show your smartphone who's a boss by disabling all unnecessary notifications. Install an app/software that will help you to be more efficient and focused.

Focus your attention: Focused attention is the key to high performance. When you check your email first thing in the morning, or when you respond to the bell sound that indicates an incoming message, your brain releases a tiny shot of dopamine. This shot gives you a pleasant buzz. It stimulates your curiosity and causes you to react and respond immediately. And then, you find it extremely difficult to pay close attention to your important tasks for the rest of the day. Research says that it takes seventeen minutes for you to take your attention back to the task after an internet interruption. A simple way to focus is to work non-stop for ninety minutes with no diversion or distraction, and then give a fifteen-minute break. Start again and work another ninety minutes flat out. Finally, after this three-hour work period, you can reward yourself with a shot of dopamine by checking your phone.

There are other chapters also that talk about how to stop procrastinating. You have to practise these principles every day until they become second nature to you. However, to make them your habit, you will have to inculcate three D's: Decision to develop the habit, Discipline to practice daily and Determination until the habit is locked in and becomes a permanent part of your personality. This book was a booster dose of motivation for me. If you're also struggling with procrastination, I highly recommend giving it a read.

Link to purchase the book: Eat That Frog!