This is a wonderful time to be alive. There have never been more possibilities and opportunities for you to achieve more of your goal 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.
Your “frog” is your biggest and 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:
If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.
The second rule of frog eating is:
If you have to eat a live frog at all, it doesn’t pay to sit and look at it for very long.
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 with determination until the habit is locked in and becomes a permanent part of your personality.
1. Set the Table
Decide exactly what you want. Clarity is essential. Write out your goals and objectives before you begin.
2. Plan every day in advance
Think on paper. Every minute you spend in planning can save you five or ten minutes in execution.
3. Apply the 80/20 Rule to everything
Twenty percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results. Always concentrate your efforts on that top 20 percent.
4. Consider the consequences
Your most important tasks and priorities are those that can have the most serious consequences, positive or negative, on your life or work. Focus on these above all else.
5. Practice creative procrastination
Since you can’t do everything, you must learn to deliberately put off those tasks that are of low value so that you have enough time to do the few things that really count.
6. Use the ABCDE Method continually
Before you begin work on a list of tasks, take a few moments to organize them by value and priority so you can be sure of working on your most important activities.
7. Focus on key result areas
Identify those results that you absolutely, positively have to gat to do your job well, and work on them all day long.
8. Apply the Law of Three
Identify the three things you do in your work that accounts for 90 percent of your contribution, and focus on getting them done before anything else. You will then have more time for your family and personal life.
9. Prepare thoroughly before you begin
Have everything you need at hand before you start. Assemble all the papers, information, tools, work materials, and numbers you might require so that you can get started and keep going.
10. Take it one oil barrel at a time
You can accomplish the biggest and most complicated job if you just complete it one step at a time.
11. Upgrade your key skills
The more knowledgeable and skilled you become at your key tasks, the faster you start them and sooner you get them done. Determine exactly what it is that you are vary good at doing, or could be very good at, and throw your whole heart into doing those specific things very, very well.
12. Identify your key constraints
Determine the bottlenecks or choke points, internal or external, that set the speed at which you achieve your most important goals, and focus on alleviating them.
13. Put pressure on yourself
Imagine that you have to leave town for a month, and work as if you had to get your major tasks completed before you left.
14. Motivate yourself into action
Be your own cheerleader. Look for the good in every situation. Focus on the situation rather than the problem. Always be a optimistic and constructive.
15. Technology is a terrible master
Take back your time from enslaving technological addictions. Learn to often turn devices off and leave them.
16. Technology is a wonderful servant
Use your technological tools to confront yourself with what is most important and protect yourself from what is least important.
17. Focus your attention
Stop the interruptions and distractions that interfere with completing your most important tasks.
18. Slice and dice the task
Break the large, complex tasks down into bite-sized pieces, and then do just one small part of the task to get started.
19. Create large chunks of time
Organize your days around large blocks of time so you can concentrate for extended periods on your most important tasks.
20. Develop a sense of urgency
Make a habit of moving fast on your key tasks. Become known as a person who does things quickly and well.
21. Single handle every task
Set clear priorities, start immediately on your most important task, and then work without stopping until the job is 100 percent complete. This is the real key to high performance and maximum personal productivity.
Make a decision to practice these principles every day until they become second nature to you. With these habits of personal management as a permanent part of your personality, your future success will be unlimited.
Just do it! Eat that frog !
Further Readings
1.https://www.briantracy.com/blog/time-management/the-truth-about-frogs/