Eat that Frog - a must read book

I was attracted to this book because of the title. A "cookbook for frogs!", I thought. It wasn't, its tagline says “21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time”. Yes, this one's for me! And it's really a good book.

When you first start work for the day, whether it’s at your workplace or at home, what do you tend to accomplish first?

If you could recall, do you notice, for the past weeks, you tend to accomplish the “easier” things first? If so, you should try to do the exact opposite from now onwards.

This is a concept I learned from Brian Tracy, one of the leading personal development moguls of this day.

Could you imagine you have to eat a live frog the first thing every morning? Unless you like eating live frogs, otherwise, it would be a torturous thing to do. But what happened after you’re done? You would realize that you’ve just accomplished, probably the most difficult thing that you are going to come across for the entire day. The most unpleasant, most unsatisfying thing you have to do in an entire day has already been completed!

Now, how do you feel, knowing that the rest of the other things you need to do would be much easier than what you’ve already accomplished?

I’m sure you feel good. You can now look at the day from a new angle, a new perspective, with a more positive outlook. The rest of your activities would seem trivial as compared to what you’ve already accomplished, and therefore you would not only get more done because you realized things are not as difficult as you think. More important, you would enjoy doing the things you are doing!

Of course, you don’t have to do anything like eating a frog each morning, but this can work with any part of your life. If you hate working out, make that the first thing you do in the morning. If you hate writing report but still have produce one, do it first thing and get it over with.

The best part about this is the fact that, in most cases, the thing you hate to do is the thing that you need to get it done soonest. If there’s nothing that you don’t enjoy doing, just switch it around a bit and do the thing that is the most urgent.

This will push up your personal productivity in your company. Your bosses and colleagues will notice and think of you as a worker who “always has everything done early” - which is always a great thing in job advancement.

If you have to get a project done, start early. Work on it first thing in the morning until it’s done. It would be better if you can finish it in one sitting. It’s definitely an advantage to your personal productivity and career. Good luck to all.