Eat That Frog Book Review

21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time

Eat That Frog Book Review By Saimadhu Polamuri

[ Start ]

Everything in this world has to be move, or change, or transform to the other state, which was different from the current state.

Even though we are not able to identify or feel the movement of the earth, still earth is rotating to experience different temperature levels from the same source called “Sun”. Early mornings, high temperature afternoons, beautiful sunsets, cooler and the darker nights.

Ideally, In our day to day life we have only two positions/stages to keep any task.

1. Start
2. End

But we are well versed to give “N” reasons to craft the middle stage. Which is decently nearer to the start stage and slightly far away from the end stage.

Below are the “N” reasons.

1. Not in a mood to work.
2. Feeling bored to turn the book pages.
3. Internet speed is too slow or internet is not working.
4. It’s Friday evening or Monday morning.
5. Instead of doing this, the other one is quite simpler one.
6. Keeping something in middle to argue with friends to believe your foolish beliefs in WhatsApp groups.

What ever the reason, its became the blockage to keep us away from the end stage. Funnily we enjoy giving these reasons quite often. If we summarise all the reasons to a single word. It is procrastination.

[Procrastinating]

The dictionary meaning of the word procrastination is “the action of delaying or postponing something”. However, the real meaning is “the creative reason you are showcasing, for not finishing something”.

The quick response from our mind is, if procrastinating is bad thing to do, how can we over come it. That’s where this book “Eat that Frog” which was written by Brain Tracy helps.

[Author introduction]

Brain Tracy is a Canadian-American motivational speaker, who has written 70+ books on self development. His top 3 books are

1. Earn what you’re really worth.
2. Eat that frog.
3. The Psychology of Achievement.

In all his motivational speeches, he addresses with the same question, Why only few people are successful?

When the number of hours in day and the resources to taste the success is equal for all.

[ Book introduction ]

Eat that frog is one of the best book in self-development which address how to overcome procrastination. The book list downs 21 different way to get away from procrastination.

[ Story from the book ]

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 spends 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 that’s the case, why don’t they put him in a slower class?”

[ Frog rules from the book ]

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.”

80/20 Rule to everything: Twenty percent of your activities will account for eighty percent of your results. Always concentrate your efforts on that top twenty percent;

10/90 rule: This rule says that the first 10% of time that you spend planning and organizing your work, before you begin, will save you as much as 90% of the time in getting the job done once you get started.

[Quick takeaways from the book]

The book starts with the below quote

“You cannot teach a person something he does not already know; you can only bring what he does know to his awareness.”

The book explains 21 key ways to stop procrastinating. Even though we feel these rules/techniques well know to us, it’s worth revisiting them.

Below are the summary of these 21 key ways.

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 eighty percent of your results. Always concentrate your efforts on that top twenty 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 and determine those results that you absolutely, positively have to get to do your job well, and work on them all day long.

8. The Law of Three: Identify the three things you do in your work that account for 90% 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 papers, information, tools, work materials and numbers 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 the sooner you get them done.

12. Leverage your special talents: Determine exactly what it is that you are very good at doing, or could be very good at, and throw your whole heart into doing those specific things very, very well.

13. Identify your key constraints: Determine the bottlenecks or chokepoints, internally or externally, that set the speed at which you achieve your most important goals and focus on alleviating them.

14. Put the pressure on yourself: Imagine that you have to leave town for a month and work as if you had to get all your major tasks completed before you left.

15. Maximize your personal powers: Identify your periods of highest mental and physical energy each day and structure your most important and demanding tasks around these times. Get lots of rest so you can perform at your best.

16. Motivate yourself into action: Be your own cheerleader. Look for the good in every situation. Focus on the solution rather than the problem. Always be optimistic and constructive.

17. Get Out of The Technological Time Sinks: Use technology to improve the quality of your communications, but do not allow yourself to become a slave to. Learn to occasionally turn things off, and leave them off.

18. Slice and dice the task: Break large, complex tasks down into bite sized pieces and then just do one small part of the task to get started.

19. Create large chunks of time: Organize your days around large blocks of time where 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% complete. This is the real key to high performance and maximum personal productivity.

[ Key points from the book ]

The Three D’s of New Habit Formation

You need three key qualities to develop the habits of focus and concentration. They are all learnable. They are

1. decision,
2. discipline,
3. determination.

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.

Step One: Decide exactly what you want.

Step Two: Write it down.

Step Three: Set a deadline on your goal. Set sub-deadlines if necessary.

Step Four: Make a list of everything that you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal.

Step Five: Organize the list into a plan.

Step Six: Take action on your plan immediately.

Step Seven: Resolve to do something every single day that moves you toward your major goal.

Three Questions for Maximum Productivity

The first question is “What are my highest value activities?”

The second question you can ask continually is, “What can I and only I do, that if done well, will make a real difference?”

The third question you can ask is “What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?”

Six “P” Formula. It says,

“Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.”

[ Rating & Review ]

My rating for the book is 4. The techniques explained in the book were good enough to motivate, making them great needs, how we apply them in our day to day life :)

[ Notes& Highlights ]

1. “Before you begin scrambling up the ladder of success, make sure that it is leaning against the right building.”
2. “Planning is bringing the future into the present so you can do something about it now.”
3. “Failures do what istension relieving while winners do what is goal achieving.”
4. “By the yard it’s hard; but inch by inch, anything’s a cinch!”
5. “If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse.”
6. “Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.”
7. “One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all.”
8. “Planning is bringing the future into the present so you can do something about it now.”
9. “Getting in requires getting out. Picking up means putting down.”
10. “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.”
11. “It is quality of time at work that counts and quantity of time at home that matters.”
12. “The sad fact is that almost done probably meant not yet started. Don’t let this happen to you.”
13. “You should never share your problems with others because 80% of people don’t care about them anyway, and the other 20% are kind of glad that you’ve got them in the first place.”
14. “you become what you think about most of the time. Be sure that you are thinking and talking about the things you want rather than the things you don’t want.”

The book ends with this nice quote.

The world is full of people who are waiting for someone to come along and motivate them to be the kind of people they wish they could be. The problem is that, “No one is coming to the rescue.”

[ End ]