Eat That Frog – Work On What’s Important Not What’s Easy
Brian Tracy's book Eat That Frog isn't new and it doesn't provide any new information. None.
So why am I listening to it on a continuous loop in my car? Because although the information isn't new to me, I am still not doing the stuff I'm supposed to.
The premise of the book, if you haven't read it (and if you have – go back and read it again) is that we need to start each day tackling the biggest, ugliest project we have on our list rather than the human nature way of ticking off a few quick tasks.
We need to end each day by writing a list of what needs to be done the next day and determine which of those tasks are the most important and thus the biggest and ugliest frogs.
When we start by completing those easy-to-do tasks we can find the day slipping away and although we were busy we never got around to the project that really meant the most to our business. Thus our levels of frustration and stress increase and our feeling of disappointment or even inadequacy rise. We know we are supposed to work on the FROG project but it just seems too big to tackle.
Brian asks – if you suddenly learned you were going to be out of the office for a month starting tomorrow – what project would you focus on today, knowing it had to be done before you left?
That's what you should be doing right this minute.
The book offers 21 great tips – he calls them tips to stop procrastinating but I have to say – I'm not a procrastinator and yet, I'm finding the book is helping me with the issue of FOCUS. As a small business owner – in most cases it is just us doing the work and so we get pulled in 90 different directions.
Brian says – list out every thing you have to do and then circle the top three that are the most important to your business success. "Those three things are what you should be doing and only those three things. The rest – delegate or eliminate."
Wow!
So look at your list of things to do today. Which is the biggest frog? TAKE A BIG BITE!
May 3rd, 2010 at 7:58 am
Deborah,
This is SPOT ON! I find myself on many days clicking around on stuff just to get it out of the way before I tackle the BIG stuff. Doing just the opposite seems counterintuitive but, in the long run, really increases my productivity. Thanks for the tip!
Dan