Eat that frog Summary
Do you ever heard some people say eat that frog? Maybe you have heard about the book? If not don’t worry I’ll give you a Eat that frog summary in this short blog post. If you bought this book yourself or if you think it’s a good investment because it’s from Brian Tracy you are probably right. I ordered this book and was a little bit dissapointed because it’s a very small book. You can read it an about 2 hours. Anyways, lets hop right into the eat that frog Summary.
If you don’t like reading you also just can watch my video about it!
What does eat that frog mean?
If you are not from america you probably never heard this phrase right? However, in america people say “eat that frog”. In some other countries maybe as well but I only know this phrase from america. Now what does this actually mean? Or what will happen if you eat that frog? Well If the first thing you do every morning is to eat a living frog you can live the rest of the day relaxed and probably nothing worse will happen. Do you agree? Now we need to adapt it a little bit because you don’t want to eat a real frog you do you? Let’s figure out what to do and how this phrase can help us a lot.
What is your frog?
The question you have to ask yourself is “what is my frog?” For the most people it’s just the biggest and most important task on a day. It’s the task you procrastinate the most. At the same time it’s the task which has the biggest positive effect in your life and in results. You frog could be anything. Maybe you even have more than one frog on a single day? If you have to eat two frogs eat the uglier first! The frogs are just tasks which you procrastinate. Try to make it happen. Just challenge yourself to do it. And keep doing it and it will become a habit.
Beat procrastination – Eat that Frog Summary
95% of your success depends on which habits you develop with the time. The habit to set priorities and to beat procrastination and to do the most important task first is a skill. You can develop and train that skill and make it a habit. If it is a habit it will be easy for you.
If we complete a task we feel good and like a winner and we are happy. So it’s like an addiction once you start to beat your procrastination.
To speed the process a little bit up there is a small trick. Always think of the benefits when you could make fast decisions and always focus on your goals. Always see yourself as the person you want to become.
Steps you need to take to beat procrastination
Before you even think of beating procrastination you need clarity to be productive. Always think on paper and write your goals down! This will help you a lot, trust me! Now let’s take a look at the steps you need to take:
- Figure out what exactly you want
- Write it down on paper (if you don’t write it down its just a wish and not a goal)
- Set yourself a deadline (if you don’t there is missing urgency and you always will procrastinate)
- Create a list of tasks you need to take to achieve your goals
- make a plan out of your lists with priorities and think about in which order you have to complete those tasks
- Take action NOW. Start working on your plan
- Work on your goal everyday and never miss a day
This list is probably the most valuable information you’ll get in this Eat that frog Summary. So maybe it’s time to write those steps down now.
Now you want to plan every day before and figure out how to eat the biggest and ugliest frog. Split this frog into specific different activities and start with the first one. Your skills to think, plan and make decisions are the best tool to beat procrastination and increase your productivity. Through every minute you invest in planning you save 10 minutes when you do the task. And there is even a formula for it!
6P – Formular (Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance)
Always make your plan for tomorrow the day before. Make different lists one main list with your big goals and then split it down into smaller ones. One list for a month. One list for a week and one list for a day. Always make it a list and if you finished a tasks mark it as finished it will motivate you and you can see your productivity which will motivate you even more. NEver forget The 10/90 Rule: For the first 10% of time you invest on planning and organizing before starting with your task you will save 90% when you are doing your task.
The ABCDE Method – Eat that frog Summary
Write a list of tasks which you have to do the next day. If you did that you want to give every task a priority and this is when you wanna use the ABCDE-Method:
- A: for very important tasks which have to be done. If you complete a task like this it has a positive impact and if you don’t it will have a negative impact on your life. For example finishing a report for your boss.
- B: for every task you should do. The task also has an impact but not as much as an A task. If you don’t finish them someone could be unhappy. Something like answering an irrelevant phone call or looking into your mails.
- C: It has less priority than B and it’s for tasks where you think it would be good if I can finish them but they don’t have any impact on your future. Things like talking to colleagues, phone calls with friends during work and stuff like this.
- D: is for tasks which you can delegate. You want to delegate as many tasks with a low priority as possible so that you can spend more time on A tasks.
- E: is for eliminate. It is a good way to save time. Its for tasks that are irrelevant for you now or that you just did because it was a habit from you and you just did it because it made fun
Note: NEVER START a B TASK BEFORE NOT ALL A TASKS A DONE!
The Law of the forced efficiency
We never have enough time to complete everything but we always have enough time to finish the most important thing. The three question to find the most important task:
- Which of my activities have the highest value?
- There is a task which has a huge impact and only you can do this and if you do it well then it will have a huge impact – What is that?
- How can you invest your time now so that it will bring you the highest value?
Set yourself under pressure
only 2% of all human beings are able to work without any control and you want to be someone like this right? You have to develop a habit and set yourself under pressure because NOBODY will come and do it for you! You have to force yourself to get it DONE! And eat your FROGS. A good way to be productive and get work done is to always work like you only have one day left
The Swiss Cheese Method
This is the most powerful thing I learned in this book! Especially if you struggle with procrastination. This Method will help you to get stuff done and in the book there are some more of those methods.
The swiss cheese method looks like this:
You have a big task and now you just want to drill holes in it. That means your task is a big piece of cheese and what you wanna do now is to drill a hole in it and work on it for 5 – 10 minutes. After that you can do anything else. Guess what will happen? Most of the time if you just start working on something even if you just wanted to work on it for 5 – 10 minutes you probably work on it until you’re finished. The hardest thing is always to start. Use the Swiss Cheese Method you learned about in this Eat that frog Summary!
Final Words & Conclusion
Eat that frog by Brian Tracy is an awesome book and I highly recommend it. If you struggle with procrastination and want to get more stuff done this book will help you a lot. Maybe this short Summary also helped you and you learned something that you can use in your life. Thanks for reading this blog post and if you enjoyed reading this you might also wanna take a look at some other Book Summaries:
You can also just grab your Eat that Frog Book on amazon.