Eat that Frog!: 21 great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time - Brian Tracey

21 ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time! – A self-help book on time management and setting priorities by Brian Tracy.

Procrastination is the habit of delaying an important task, usually by focusing on less, more enjoyable, and easier activities instead. It is different from laziness which is an unwillingness to act. Procrastination can restrict your potential and undermine your career.

This book gives insights on how to combat procrastination and optimize one’s full potential, be it in your career or in your personal life. It aims to change one’s perspective on how to achieve one’s goals in life and how to act on them immediately.

“There’s never enough time to do the things that we need to do.”

According to him, you can get control of your time and your life, only by changing the way you think, work, and deal with the never-ending river of responsibilities that flows over you each day.

You can only get control of your tasks and activities only to the degree that you stop doing some things and starts spending some time on activities that can really make a difference in your life.

The heart and soul of this book were founded on this simple idea – “The ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well, and to finish it completely is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life.”

Brian Tracy designed this program to show us how to get ahead more rapidly in our careers. It contains the 21 most powerful principles on personal effectiveness. These methods, techniques, and strategies are practical, proven, and fast-acting.

He firmly believed that the key to success is action!

His principles aim to bring about fast, predictable improvements in performance and results. So, the faster you learn and apply them, the faster you will move ahead in your career, guaranteed! There will be no limit to what you could accomplish when you learn how to eat that frog!

The frog, of course, is a metaphor used to describe the most important task, which most likely, you will procrastinate upon if you don’t do something about it.

For this reason, and perhaps more than ever before, your ability to select your most important task at each moment and then to start on that task and get it done both quickly and well, will probably have more of an impact on your success than any other quality or skill you can develop.

It has been said that if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can then go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that it’s probably the worst thing that’s going to happen to you all day long. In addition, if you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first. This is another way of saying that if you have two important tasks, start with the biggest, hardest, and most difficult task first. Discipline yourself and immediately act on it. Then persist until the task is complete before you go on to something else.

One of the most important takeaways in this book is that one of the keys to your living a wonderful life, having a successful career, and feeling terrific about yourself, is for you to develop the habit of starting and finishing important jobs. This behavior will take on a power of its own and you’ll find it easier to complete important tasks.

Practice is the key to mastering any new skill. Fortunately, our mind is like a muscle. It grows stronger and more capable with use with practice. You can learn any behavior or develop any habit that you consider either desirable or necessary.

According to him, there are 3 qualities needed in order for you to develop the habit of focus and concentration; Decision, Discipline, and Determination. First, make a decision to develop the habit of task completion. Second, practice the principles you’re about to learn until you master them. And finally, back everything you do with determination.

Until habit is locked in and becomes a permanent part of your personality, there’s a way that you can accelerate your progress toward becoming the highly productive, effective, and efficient person that you want to be. It consists of your thinking continually about the rewards and benefits of being an action-oriented, fast-moving, focused person.

To overcome procrastination, you have to learn and develop new skills, habits, and abilities. You should learn how to train yourself through practice and repetition. You should learn to get your most important task completed quickly. You would want to see yourself as the kind of person who gets an important job done quickly and well on a consistent basis.

Your mental picture of yourself has a powerful effect on your behavior. And the way you see yourself on the inside largely determines your performance on the outside. As Jim Cathcart said, the person you see is the person you will be!

21 ways How to Stop Procrastination.

Step 1: SET THE TABLE
Decide exactly what you want. Write out your goals and objectives before you begin.

“There is one quality that one must possess to win and that is definiteness of purpose. A knowledge of what one wants and a burning desire to achieve it.”

Napoleon Hill

Clarity is the most important concept in personal productivity. The #1 reason why some people get more work done faster is that they are absolutely clear about their goals and objectives and they don’t deviate from them. The clearer you are about what it is you want and what you have to do to achieve it, the easier it is for you to overcome procrastination, eat your frog and get on with the completion of the task.

A major reason for procrastination and lack of motivation are vagueness, confusion, and fuzzy-mindedness about what you were supposed to do and in what order, and for what reason. You must avoid this common condition with all your strength by striving for ever greater clarity in everything you do.

He provided 7 powerful formulas for setting and achieving goals. These are:

Decide exactly what you want.
Write it down. Think on paper.
Set a deadline for your goal.
Make a list of everything that you can think of that you’re going to have to do to achieve your goal.
Organize the list into a plan.
Take action on your plan immediately.
Resolve to do something every single day that moves you towards your major goal.

Clear written goals have a wonderful effect on your thinking. They motivate you and galvanize you into action. They stimulate your creativity. Release your energy and help you to overcome procrastination as much as any other factor.

Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement. The bigger your goals and the clearer they are, the more excited you become about achieving them. The more you think about your goals, the greater becomes your inner drive and desire to accomplish them.

Step 2: PLAN EVERYDAY IN ADVANCE
Plan every day in advance. Think on paper. Every minute you spend in planning can save you 5 or 10 minutes in execution.

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now!”

Alan Lakin

You probably heard the old adage, how do you eat an elephant? The answer of course is one bite at a time. How do you eat your biggest, ugliest frog? In the same way, you break it down into specific step-by-step activities and then you start on the first one.

Your ability to think, plan and decide is your most powerful tool for overcoming procrastination and increasing your productivity. Your ability to set your goals plan and take action on them determines the course of your entire life.

As Alex McKenzie wrote, action without planning is the cause of every failure. Your ability to plan well in advance of acting is a measure of your overall competence. The better the plan you have, the easier it is for you to overcome procrastination. It gets you started to eat your frog and then to keep going.

Planning is very helpful in increasing your productivity and performance. Did you know that every minute spent in planning saves you as many as 10 minutes in execution? It takes only about 10 or 12 minutes for you to plan out your day but this small investment of time will save you at least two hours, or 100 to 120 minutes in wasted time and diffused effort throughout the day.

Planning is really quite simple to do. All you need is a piece of paper and a pen. Always work from the list. When something new comes up add it to the list before you do it. You can increase your productivity and output by 25% or more from the very first day that you begin working consistently from a list. The more time you take to make a written list of everything you have to do in advance, the more effective and efficient you will be.

Here are examples of different lists for different purposes:

1. Create a master list.
2. Create a monthly list.
3. Create a weekly list.

This activity gives you a visual picture of accomplishment. It generates a feeling of success and forwards motion. Seeing yourself working progressively through your list motivates and energizes you. It raises your self-esteem and self-respect. Steady and visible progress propels you forward and helps you to overcome procrastination.

One of the most important rules of personal effectiveness is the 10/90 rule. This rule says that the first 10% of the 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. You’ll find it much easier to get going and keeps going the work goes faster and smoother than ever before.

So, always, think on paper. Always work from the list and you’ll be amazed at how much more productive you become and how much easier it is to eat your frog.

Step 3: APPLY THE 80/20 RULE TO EVERYTHING
20% of your activities will account for 80% of your results. Always concentrate your efforts on that top 20%

“We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The 80/20 rule is one of the most powerful of all concepts of time in life management. It is also called the Pareto Principle. The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, is a theory that maintains that 80 percent of the output from a given situation or system is determined by 20 percent of the input. The principle doesn’t stipulate that all situations will demonstrate that precise ratio – it refers to a typical distribution.

Pareto wrote in his 1985 study that society seemed to divide naturally into what he called the vital few. The top 20% in terms of money and influence and the trivial many the bottom 80%.

This rule, for example, says that:

20% of your activities will account for 80% of your results.
20% of your customers will account for 80% of your sales.
20% of your products or services will account for 80% of your profits.
20% of your tasks will account for 80% of the value of what you do.
This means that if you have a list of 10 items to do today, 2 of those items will turn out to be worth as much or more, than all the other eight items put together. More than likely, each of these tasks may take the same amount of time to accomplish but one or two of these tasks will contribute five or ten times the value of any of the others. Often, one item on a list of 10 tasks that you have to do can be worth more than all the other nine items put together. This task is invariably the frog that you should eat first.

Here’s a rule for success. Success resists information to clear up small things first. Remember, whatever you choose to do over and over again, eventually becomes a habit that’s hard to break. Do not start your day on a low-value task. This is not the kind of habit you want to develop or keep. The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you’ll seem to naturally get motivated to continue. A part of your mind loves to be busy working on a significant task that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually.

Time management is really life management. Personal management is really taking control of the sequence of events. Time management is control over what you do next. And you’re always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.

Effective, productive people, discipline themselves to start on the most important task that is before them. They forced themselves to eat that frog, whatever it is. They accomplished vastly more than the average person and are much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well.

Step 4: CONSIDER THE CONSEQUENCES
Your most important tasks and priorities are those that can have the most serious consequences. It may be positive or negative, but still, focus on these tasks above all else.

“Every man has become great, every successful man has succeeded, in proportion as he has confined his powers to one particular channel.”

Orison Swett Marden

A superior thinker is a person’s ability to accurately predict the consequences of doing or not doing something. The potential consequences of any task or activity are the key determinants of how important it really is to you and your company. This way of evaluating a significance of a task is how you determine what your next frog really is.

Your attitude toward your time or horizon has an enormous impact on your behavior and your choices. People who take a long view of their lives and careers always seem to make much better decisions about their time and activities than people who give very little thought to the future.

Here are some rules for success:

1. Long-term thinking improves short-term decision-making.

Successful people have a clear future orientation. They think 5, 10, or 20 years out into the future. They analyze their choices and behaviors in the present to make sure that they are consistent with the long-term future that they desire.

For example, in your work, having a clear idea of what is really important to you in the long term, makes it much easier for you to and better decisions about your priorities in the short term. Something that is important has long-term potential consequences. Something that is unimportant has few or no long-term potential consequences.

2. Future intents often determine present actions.

The clearer you are about your future intentions, the greater influence that clarity will have on what you do at the moment. With a clear long-term vision, you are much more capable of evaluating activity in the present. And to ensure that it is consistent with where you truly want to end up.

Successful people are those who are willing to delay gratification and make sacrifices in the short term so that they can enjoy far greater rewards in the long term. Unsuccessful people, on the other hand, think more of short-term pleasure and immediate gratification, giving very little thought to the long-term future.

Remember, motivation requires motive. The greater the positive potential impact that an action or behavior can have on your life, once you define it clearly, the more motivated you will be to overcome procrastination and get it done quickly. Keep yourself focused and forward-moving by continually starting and completing those tasks that can make a major difference to your company and to your future.

Thinking continually about the potential consequences of your choices, decisions, and behaviors is one of the very best ways to determine your true priorities in your work and personal life. Make a plan to achieve it and go to work on your plan immediately.

Remember the wonderful words of Goethe, “Just begin and the mind grows heated; continue, and the task will be completed!”

Step 5: PRACTICE THE A B C D E METHOD CONTINUALLY
Practice 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 that you can be sure of working on your most important activities.

“The first law of success is concentration – to bed all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor the left.”

William Mathews

The more thought you invest in planning and setting priorities before you begin, the more important things you will do. The faster you will get them done once you get started, the more important and valuable the task is to you, and the more motivated to overcome procrastination and launch yourself into the job.

The ABCDE method is a powerful priority-setting technique that you can use every single day. This might make you so simple and effective, that it can, all by itself, make you one of the most efficient and effective people in your field. The power of this technique lies in its simplicity.

Here’s how it works. You start with a list of everything you have to do for the coming day. Think on paper. List ABCD and E before each item on your list before you begin the first task.

Remember these key items:

An A-item is something that is very important. It is something that you must do or else face serious consequences. These items are the frogs of your life. Your A1 task is your biggest, ugliest frog of all.
A B-list is a task that you should do but it has only mild consequences. These items are the tadpoles of your work life. This means that someone may be unhappy or inconvenienced if you don’t do one of these tasks but is nowhere as important as an A-task. The rule is that you should never do a B-task if there’s still an A-task left undone. You should never be distracted by a tadpole when a big frog is sitting there, waiting to be eaten.
A C-task is something that is nice to do but there are no consequences at all whether done or not. This sort of activity has no effect at all on your career or work life.
A D-task is something that you can delegate to someone else. The rule is that you should delegate everything that anybody else can do so that you can free up more time for the A-tasks that only you can do.
An E-task is something that you can eliminate altogether and it won’t make any real difference. This may be a task that was important to you at one time but it’s no longer relevant to yourself or anyone else. Often it’s something you continue to do out of habit or because you enjoy it.

This method will get you completely organized and ready to get more important things done faster. The key to making this ABCDE method work is for you to now discipline yourself to start immediately on your A1 task and then to stay at it until it’s complete. Use your willpower to get going and stay going on this one job, that most important single task you could possibly be doing. Eat the whole frog and don’t stop until it’s finished completely.

Your ability to think through and analyze your work list and determine your A1 task is the springboard to higher levels of accomplishment and greater self-esteem, self-respect, and personal pride. When you develop that habit of concentrating on your A1, the most important activity – eating your frog, you will start getting more done than any two or three people around you.

Discipline yourself to do nothing else until this one job is complete. Practice this ABCDE method every day and on every work or project list before you begin work for the next month. By that time, you will develop a habit of setting and working on your highest priority tasks and your future will be assured.

Step 6: FOCUSED ON KEY-RESULT AREAS
Identify and determine those results that you absolutely positively have to get done to do your job well and work on them all day long.

“When every physical or mental resource is focused, one’s power to solve a problem multiplies tremendously.”

Norman Vincent Peale

A key-result area is something that you must achieve to succeed in your job. It’s a test-result area for which you are completely responsible. If you don’t do it, it will not be done by someone else. A key-result area is an activity that is under your control. It is an output of your work that becomes an input or a contributing factor to the work of others.

The starting point of high performance is for you to identify the key result areas of your work. People’s ability to perform tasks quickly and well largely determines their pay and promotability.

Here’s the rule, your weakest key result area, sets the height at which you can use all your other skills and abilities. This rule says that you could be exceptional in six out of seven of your key result areas but really poor in the 7th, and your poor performance in the seventh area, will hold you back and determine how much you would achieve with all your other skills. This weakness will act as a drag on your effectiveness and be a constant source of friction and frustration.

One of the major reasons for procrastination and delay in the workplace is that people avoid jobs and activities in those areas where they have performed poorly in the past. Instead of making a plan to improve in a particular area, most people avoid that area altogether, which just makes the situation worse. The reverse of this is that the better you become in a particular skill area, the more motivated you will be to perform that function, and the less you will procrastinate and the more determined you will be, to get it finished.

The fact is that everybody has both strengths and weaknesses. Refuse to rationalize and justify or defend your areas of weakness. Instead, identify them clearly. Set a goal and make a plan to become very good in each of those areas. You may be only one critical skill away from top performance in your job.

One of the fastest and best ways to stop procrastinating and get more things done faster is for you to become absolutely excellent in your key result areas. This can be as important as anything else you do in your life and career. Make a habit of identifying, and analyzing your key areas regularly for the rest of your career. Never stop improving. This decision alone can change your life.

Step 7: OBEY THE LAW OF FORCED EFFICIENCY
There’s never enough time to do everything but there’s always enough time to do the most important things. Determine what they are.

“Concentration in its truest, unadulterated form, means the ability to focus the mind on one single solitary thing.”

Komar

The law of forced efficiency says that there’s never enough time to do everything but there’s always enough time to do the most important thing. It means, you cannot eat every tadpole or frog in the pond but you can eat the biggest and ugliest one and that would be enough at least for the time being.

There will never be enough time to do everything you have to do. The fact is that the average person today is working at 110 to 130% of capacity and the jobs and responsibilities just keep piling up. All of us have stacks of reading material that we still have to go through.

One study concluded recently that the average executive has 300 or 400 hours of reading and projects backlog at home and at the office. What this means is that you will never be caught up. So get that thought out of your mind. All you can hope for is to be on top of your most important responsibilities. The others will just have to wait.

You can use three questions on a regular basis to keep yourself focused on getting your most important task completed on schedule.

What are my highest value activities put another way what are the biggest frogs that you have to eat to make the greatest contribution to your organization, to your family, to your life in general?
This is one of the most important questions you can ever ask and answer. What are your highest value activities? You must be crystal clear about your highest value activities before you begin work.

What can I and only I do, that have done well, will make a real difference?
This question comes from Peter Drucker, the management guru. It’s one of the best of all questions for achieving personal effectiveness. What can you and only you, do that have done well will make a real difference.

This refers to something that only you can do. If you don’t do it, it won’t be done by someone else. But if you do do it, and you do it well, it can really make a difference to your life and your career. What is it? What is your frog in your work? Every hour of every day you can ask yourself this question and there will always be a specific answer.

Your job is to be clear about the answer and then to start and work on this task before anything else.

What is the most valuable use of my time, right now? In other words, what is my biggest frog of all, at this moment?
Do the first things first and the second things, not at all. The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least. The more accurate your answers to these questions, the easier it will be for you to set clear priorities to overcome procrastination and to get started on the one activity that represents the most valuable use of your time right now.

These are the core questions of time management. Asking it is the key to overcoming procrastination and becoming a highly productive person. Every hour of every day, there is an answer to this question. You can ask yourself these questions over and over again and always be working on the answer to it whatever it is.

Remember, your most powerful thinking tool for success is your ability to discriminate between one priority and another. If you are able to apply these to your daily life or work, then you will likely experience breakthroughs that will change the direction of your life and work.

Step 8: PREPARE THOROUGHLY BEFORE YOU BEGIN
Prepare thoroughly before you begin. Remember the 6P’s: Proper, prior, preparation, prevents poor performance.

“No matter what the level of your ability, you have more potential than you can ever develop in a lifetime.”

James T. McKay

One of the best ways for you to overcome procrastination and get more things done faster is for you to have everything you need at hand before you begin. It is like preparing a meal, preparing to eat that frog. You start by preparing all the ingredients, and then begin putting the dinner together one step at a time.

Similarly, set up your work area so that it is comfortable attractive, and conducive to working for long periods especially make sure that you have a comfortable chair that supports your back and allows your feet to sit flat on the floor.

The most productive people take the time to create a work area where they enjoy spending time. The cleaner and neater your work area before you begin, the easier it is for you to get started and keep going.

One of the great techniques for overcoming procrastination, eating frogs, is for you to get everything completely ready to work in advance. When everything is laid out in order and sequence, you feel much more like getting on with the job.

It’s amazing how many books never get written, how many degrees never get completed. How many life-changing tasks never get started, because people fail to take the first step of preparing everything in advance.

Don’t let this happen to you!

When you sit down with everything in front of you, ready to go, assume the body language of high performance. Sit up straight, sit forward and away from the back of the chair, and carry yourself as though you are an efficient effective, high-performing personality. Then pick up the first item and say to yourself, let’s get to work! And plunge in. Once you started, keep going until the job is finished.

Resolve today to clean up your desk and office completely so that you feel effective, efficient, and ready to get going each time you sit down to work!

Step 9: DO YOUR HOMEWORK
Do your homework. The more knowledgeable and skilled you become at your key tasks, the faster you start them and the sooner you get them done.

“The only certain means of success is to render more and better service than is expected of you no matter what your task may be.”

Og Mandino

Doing your homework is the most important personal productivity principle of all. Learn what you need to learn so that you can do your work in an excellent fashion. The better you become it, eating a particular type of frog, the more likely you are to just plunge in and get it done.

A major reason for delay and procrastination is a feeling of inadequacy. Lack of confidence or inability in a key area of the task, feeling weak or deficient in a single area, is enough to discourage you from starting the job at all.

Therefore, continually upgrade your skills in your key result areas. However good you are today, your knowledge and skill are becoming obsolete at and rapid rate. As Pat Riley, the basketball coach said, if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. One of the most helpful of all time management techniques is for you to get better at your key areas.

The rule for success is continuous learning. It is the minimum requirement for success in any field. Refuse to allow a weakness or a lack of ability in any area to hold you back. Everything in business is learnable. And what others have learned, you can learn as well.

The more you learn and know, the more confident and motivated you feel. The better you become, the more capable you will be of doing even more in your field. The more you learn, the more you can learn. Just as you can build your physical muscles through physical exercise, you can build your mental muscles with mental exercise. And there’s no limit to how far or how fast you can advance except for the limits you place on your imagination.

Set a goal. Make a plan. And begin developing and increasing your ability in those key areas. Resolve to be the very best at what you do. This is one of the greatest time management techniques of all.

Step 10: LEVERAGE YOUR SPECIAL TALENT
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 well.

“Do your work. Not just your work and no more, but a little more for the lavishing’s sake-that little more that is worth all the rest.”

Dean Briggs

Remember you are remarkable. You have special talents and abilities that make you different from every other person who has ever lived. There are frogs you can eat or learn to eat that can make you one of the most important people of your generation.

There are certain things that you can do or that you can learn to do that can make you extraordinarily valuable to yourself and others. Your job is to identify the special areas of your uniqueness, and then commit yourself to become very very good in those areas.

Think of your unique talent or abilities on a regular basis. What is it that you do especially well? What are you good at? What do you do easily and well that is difficult for most other people? What has been most responsible for your success in life and work today? What have been the most significant frogs you have eaten in the past? You were designed such that you will most enjoy doing the very things that you can be the very best at. What is it that you enjoy the most about your work? What kinds of frogs do you most enjoy eating?

The very fact that you enjoy something means that you probably have within yourself the capability to be excellent in that area. One of your great responsibilities in life is to decide what you really love to do. And then to throw your whole heart into doing that special thing very very well.

Successful people are those who have taken the time to identify what they do well and most enjoy. They know what they do that really makes the difference in their work and they then concentrate on that task or area of activity exclusively.

You should always focus your best energies and abilities on starting and completing those tasks where your unique talents and abilities enable you to do them well and make a significant contribution.

You cannot do everything but you can do those few things in which you excel. The few things that can really make a difference.

Remember to ask yourself these key questions on a regular basis;

What am I really good at?
What do I enjoy the most about my work?
What has been most responsible for my success in the past?
If I could do any job at all, what job would it be?
If you won a lottery or otherwise came in with an enormous amount of money and you could choose any job or any part of any job to do in the indefinite future, what work would you choose?
What sort of preparation would you have to engage in to be able to do that work in an excellent fashion?

Whatever your answers are, get started today!

Step 11: IDENTIFY YOUR KEY CONSTRAINTS
Determine the bottlenecks or choke points, internally or externally, that set the speed at which you achieve your most important goals, and then focus on alleviating those constraints.

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”

Alexander Graham Bell

In virtually every task, large or small, one factor sets the speed at which you achieve the goal for complete the job. What is it? Concentrate your mental energies on that one key area. This can be the most valuable use of your time and talents. This factor may be a person whose help or decision you need, a resource that you require, a weakness in some part of your organization, or something else. That limiting factor is always going to be there and it is always your job to find it.

Whatever you have to do, there’s always a limiting factor that determines how quickly and well you get it done. Your job is to study the task and identify the limiting factor or constraint within it. You must focus all your energies on alleviating that single choke point.

The identification of the limiting factor in any process and the focus on that factor can usually bring about more progress in a shorter period of time than any other single activity. The 80/20 rule applies to the constraints in your life and in your work. What this means is that 80% of the constraints the factors that are holding you back from achieving your goals are internal. They are within yourself. Within your own personal qualities abilities, habits, disciplines, or competencies. Only 20% of the limiting factors are external to you or to your organization. Your key constraints can be something that is small, and not particularly obvious.

Successful people always begin the analysis of constraints by asking the question; What is it in me that is holding me back? They take complete responsibility and look to themselves for both the cause and the cure of their problems. Keep asking what sets the speed at which I get the results I want. The definition of the constraint determines the strategy that you use to alleviate it. The failure to identify the correct constraint or the identification of the wrong constraint can lead you in the wrong direction. You can end up solving the wrong problem.

Behind every constraint or choke point, once it’s located and alleviated successfully, you’ll find another constraint for limiting factors. Whether it’s getting to work on time in the morning or building a successful career, there are always limiting factors and bottlenecks that set the speed of your progress. What you need to do is to find them and focus your energies on solving them as quickly as possible.

Starting off your day with the removal of a key bottleneck or constraint fills you full of energy and personal power. It propels you into following through and completing the job and is always a limiting factor. Often, the key constraint or limiting factor is the most important frog you can eat at that moment.

Step 12: TAKE IT, ONE BARREL AT A TIME
You can accomplish the biggest and most complicated job if you just completed one step at a time.

“A journey of 1000 leagues begins with a single step.”

Confucius

One step at a time is a great strategy for overcoming procrastination and getting more things done faster. Get your mind off the huge task in front of you and focus on a single action that you can take. If we put it in other terms, eating a large frog, is for you to take it, one bite at a time.

The idea of one oil barrel at a time was derived from the author’s experience in the Sahara Dessert where drifting sand erases the tracks and would make it impossible for a lot of people to navigate or even cross the place. The French Army made a solution by marking the track with black 55-gallon oil drums, 5 kilometers apart, exactly the distance to the horizon where the earth curved away as you cross that flat wasteland. Because of this, you could see two oil barrels when you cross, the one you had just passed and the 5 kilometers ahead. And that was enough. All you had to do was steer toward the next oil barrel. As a result, you would be able to cross the biggest desert in the world by simply taking it, one oil barrel at a time.

In the same way, you could accomplish the biggest task in your life, by disciplining yourself to take it just one step at a time. Your job is to go as far as you can see. You will then, see far enough to go farther. To accomplish a great task, you must step out in faith and have complete confidence that your next step will soon become clear to you.

Remember the wonderful advice; leap and the net will appear. A great life or a great career is built by performing one task at a time quickly and well, and then going on to the next task.

You can overcome procrastination and accomplish extraordinary things by just taking the first step in getting started towards your goal and then by taking it one step, one oil barrel at a time.

Step 13: 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 leave.

“The first requisite for success is to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.”

Thomas Edison

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. These people are waiting for a bus on a street where no buses pass. As a result, if they don’t take charge of their lives and put pressure on themselves, they can end up waiting forever, and that is what most people do.

Only about 2% of people can work entirely without supervision. We call these people leaders. This is the kind of person you are meant to be. Your job is to form a habit of putting pressure on yourself and not waiting for someone else to come along and do it for you.

You must choose your own frogs and then make yourself eat them in their order of importance. The standards you set for your own work and behavior should be higher than anyone else could set for you. Make it a game with yourself to start a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little later. Always look for ways to go the extra mile to do more than you’re paid for.

As Nathaniel Brandon put it – Your self-esteem, the core of your personality, is your reputation with yourself. It means that you build up or pull down your reputation with yourself with everything you do or fail to do.

Successful people continually put the pressure on themselves to perform at high levels. Unsuccessful people have to be instructed and supervised and pressured by others. One of the great ways for you to overcome procrastination is by working as though you only have one day to get all your most important jobs done before you left for a month or went on vacation.

By putting the pressure on yourself, you accomplish more and better tasks faster than ever before. You become a high-performance, high-achieving personality. You feel terrific about yourself and bit by bit, you build up that habit of rapid task conclusion that then goes on to serve you all the days of your life.

Step 14: 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.

“Gathering your resources, rally all your faculties, marshal all your energies, focus all your capabilities upon mastery and at least one field of endeavor.”

John Hagee

The raw material of personal performance and productivity is contained in your physical mental and emotional energies. One of the most important requirements for being happy and productive is for you to guard and nurture your energy levels at all times.

Your body is like a machine that uses food, water, and rest to generate energy that you then use to accomplish important tasks in your life and work. When you are fully rested you can get 2X, 3X, and even 5X as much time as when you’re tired.

The rule is that your productivity begins to decline after eight or nine hours of work. For this reason, working long hours into the night, although it is sometimes necessary, means that you are usually producing less and wasting more time. The more tired you get, the worse is your work, and the more mistakes you make. At a certain point, like a battery that is rundown, you can reach the wall and simply be unable to continue.

Another reason for procrastination is fatigue or attempting to start on a task when you’re tired. You have no energy or enthusiasm. Like a cold engine in the morning, you can’t seem to get yourself started. Whenever you feel overtired and overwhelmed with too much to do with too little time, STOP YOURSELF and say, ALL I CAN DO, IS ALL I CAN DO.

Here’s a rule for you. Take one full day off every week. Do things that will allow your mind and body to recharge themselves. You are always at your most productive when you have full energy. This energy will enable you to overcome procrastination and get started on your major task faster and with greater results than you ever could if you were tired.

The better you feel when you start work, the less you procrastinate and the more eager you are to get the job done and get on with other tasks. High energy levels are indispensable to higher levels of productivity, more happiness, and greater success in everything you do.

Step 15: 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.

“It is in the compelling disaster of high adventure and the victory and of creative action that man finds his supreme joys.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

To perform at your best, you must become your own personal cheerleader. You must develop a routine of coaching yourself and encouraging yourself to play at the top of your game.

Did you know that 95% of your emotions, positive or negative, are determined by how you talk to yourself on the minute to minute basis? It is not what happens to you, but the way that you interpret the things that are happening to you that determines how you feel. It is your version of events that largely determines whether they motivate or demotivate you.

To keep yourself motivated you must try to become an optimist. You must determine to respond positively to the words, actions, and reactions of the people and situations around you whenever possible. You must refuse to let the unavoidable difficulties and setbacks of daily life affect your mood or emotions.

Your level of self-esteem, how much you like and respect yourself, is central to your levels of motivation and persistence. You should talk to yourself positively all the time to boost your self-esteem.

To keep yourself motivated, continually tell yourself, “I can do it, I can do it”. No matter how you really feel at the moment or what is happening in your life, resolve to remain cheerful and upbeat.

Many studies have determined that optimism is the most important quality you can develop for personal and professional success and happiness.

Here are some of the Special Behaviors of an Optimist:

Optimist look for the good in every situation. No matter what goes wrong, always look for something good or beneficial. And not surprisingly, they always seem to find it.
Optimists always seek valuable lessons in every setback or difficulty. Believe that difficulties come not to obstruct but to instruct. Believe that each setback or obstacle contains a valuable lesson that you can learn and grow from, and that you are determined to find it.
Optimists always seek valuable lessons in every setback or difficulty. Believe that difficulties come not to obstruct but to instruct. Believe that each setback or obstacle contains a valuable lesson that you can learn and grow from, and that you are determined to find it.

Moreso, people who are habitually optimistic, positive, and upbeat, think and talk continually about their goals. They can talk about the future and where they’re going rather than the past and where they came from. They’re always looking forward rather than backward.

Control your thoughts. Don’t forget that you become what you think most of the time. Make sure that you are thinking and talking about the things that you want rather than the things that you don’t want.

Always keep your mind positive by accepting complete responsibility for yourself and for everything that happens to you. Refuse to criticize or blame others for anything. Results make progress rather than excuses. Keep your thoughts and your energy focused forward on the things you can do to improve your life and let the rest go.

Step 16: PRACTICE CREATIVE PROCRASTINATION
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.

“Make time for getting big tasks done every day. Plan your daily workload in advance. Single out the relatively few small jobs that absolutely should be immediately done in the morning then go directly to the big tasks and pursue them to completion.”

Boardroom Reports

Creative procrastination is one of the most effective of all personal performance techniques. It could change your life. The fact is, that you can’t do everything that you have to do. You have to procrastinate on something. So put on smaller or less ugly frogs and then eat the biggest and ugliest frogs before anything else.

What you choose to procrastinate on sets the difference between high and low performers. Since everybody tends to procrastinate at some point, choose the low-value activities to procrastinate on. Decide to procrastinate, outsource, delegate, and eliminate those activities that don’t make much of a contribution to your life in any case. Get rid of the tadpoles and focus on frogs.

One major key point to this is to set proper priorities. If you set priorities, you must set posteriorities as well. A priority is something that you do more of and sooner. While posteriority is something that you do less off and later, if at all.

The rule is to get your time and your life under control only to the degree to which you discontinue lower-value activities. One of the most powerful of all words in time management is the word “NO”. Say no to anything that is not a high-value use of your time and your life. Say it early and say it often. The fact is that you have no spare time. In other words, your card is full.

Creative procrastination is the act of thoughtfully and deliberately deciding, upon the exact things you are not going to do right now, if ever. Most people engage in unconscious procrastination. This means they procrastinate without thinking about it. As a result, they procrastinate on the big, hard, valuable, important task that can have significant long-term consequences in their lives and careers. You must avoid this at all costs!

You must learn to deliberately procrastinate on tasks that are of low value so that you have more time for tasks that can really make a difference in your life and work. Continually review your duties and responsibilities to identify time-consuming tasks and activities that you can abandon with no real loss. This is an ongoing responsibility for you that never ends.

Step 17: DO THE MOST DIFFICULT TASK FIRST
Begin the day with your most difficult task. That one task that can make the greatest contribution to yourself and your work. And resolve to stay at it until it’s complete.

“The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between men—between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant—is energy, invincible determination—a purpose once fixed, and then—death or victory!”

Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton

One of the best techniques for overcoming procrastination, getting more things done faster, is for you to start work by doing your most difficult task first. This is truly eating your frog. And is one of the hardest and yet one of the most important of all personal management skills.

You developed this habit by following these steps:

At the end of your work day or on the weekend, make a list of everything you have to do the next day. Review this list using the ABCDE method combined with the 8020 rule.
Next, select your A1 – most important task, the job with the most serious potential consequences if you get it done or if you get it undone.
Then, assemble everything you need to start and finish this job and lay it out, ready for you to start work in the morning.
Clear your workspace completely so that you have this one most important task, like a big frog, sitting on your desk, waiting for you in the morning.
Then discipline yourself to get up, get ready, and then walk in, sit down, and start on your most difficult task without interruptions before you do anything else.

Do this every day for 21 days, until it becomes a habit. With this discipline, you will literally double your productivity in less than a month.

Starting first thing in the morning with your biggest and most important task is the opposite of what most people do. This discipline breaks you into the habit of procrastination and puts your future squarely in your own hands. Starting with your most difficult job or piece of the job, gives you a jump start on the day. As a result, you’ll be more energized and productive from then on.

On the days when you launch immediately into your top job, you will feel better about yourself and your work than on any other day. You will personally feel more powerful, more effective, more in control, and more in charge of your life than at any other time.

Develop a habit of doing the most difficult task first and you’ll never look back. You’ll become one of the most productive people of your generation.

Step 18: SLICE AND DICE THE TASK
Break large, complex tasks down into bite-size pieces and then just do one small part of the task to get started.

“The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, that every time we repeat the act, we strengthen the strand. Add to it another filament until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably in thought and act.”

Orison Swett Marden

A major reason for procrastinating on big important tasks is that they often appear so large and formidable when you first approach them.

Here are some of the techniques that you can use when faced with an overwhelming chunk task.

Salami-sliced method. With this method, you lay out the task in detail and then resolve to do just one slice of the job for the time being. Like eating a roll of salami, one slice at a time, or like eating a frog, one piece at a time.

Swiss cheese method of working. This technique is to get yourself into gear by resolving to punch a hole into the task like a hole in a block of Swiss cheese. Use the Swiss cheese task when you resolve to work for a specific time period on it. This may be as little as 5 or 10 minutes. after which you will stop and do something else. you will take just one bite of your frog and then rest or do something else.
Psychologically, you will find it easier to do a single small piece of a large project, than to start on the whole job. Often, once you’ve started and completed a single part of the job, you’ll feel like doing just one more. Soon, you’ll find yourself working through the job one part at a time, and before you know it the job will be completed.

An important point to remember is that you have within you what is called an urge to completion. Or what is often referred to as a compulsion to closure. This means that you actually feel happier and more powerful when you start and complete a task of any kind. You satisfy a deep subconscious need to bring finality to a job or project. This sense of completion or closure motivates you to start the next task or project and then persist toward final completion.

When you start and finish a small piece of a task, you feel motivated to start and finish another part. And then another and so on. Each small step forward energizes you. You develop an inner drive and then motivate you to carry through to completion. This completion gives you the great feeling of happiness and satisfaction that accompanies any success.

The common quality of successful, happy people is that they are, action-oriented. When they hear a good idea, they take action immediately to see if it can help them.

Don’t delay, try it today!

Step 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.

“Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all of your energies on a limited set of targets.”

Nido Qubein

The strategy of creating large chunks of time requires a commitment from you to work at a scheduled time on large tasks. Most of the really important work you do requires large chunks of unbroken time to complete. Your ability to create and carve out these blocks of high-value, highly-productive time is central to your ability to make a significant contribution to your work and to your life.

Successful people set aside specific time periods each day. The key to the success of this method of working in specific time segments is for you to plan your day in advance and specifically schedule a fixed time period for a particular activity or task. You make work appointments with yourself and then discipline yourself to keep them.

A lot of highly productive people schedule specific activities in pre-planned time slots all day long. These people build their work lives around accomplishing key tasks, one at a time. As a result, they become more and more productive and eventually produce 2X, 3X, and 5X as much as the average person.

A time planner, broken down by day, hour, and minute, organized in advance, can be one of the most powerful Personal Productivity Tools of all. It enables you to see where you can consolidate and create blocks of time for concentrated work.

One of the keys to high levels of performance and productivity is for you to make every minute count. Use travel and transition time, or what is often called gifts of time, to complete small chunks of larger tasks. Remember – the pyramids were built one block at a time. A great life and a great career are built on one task at a time and often one part of the task at a time. And your job in time management is to deliberately and creatively organize the concentrated time periods you need to get your jobs done well and on schedule.

Continually look for different ways to save, schedule, and consolidate large chunks of time. Use this time to work on the most important task with the most significant long-term consequences. Make every minute count. Work steadily and continuously without distractions or diversions by planning and preparing your work in advance. Most of all, keep focused on the most important results for which you are responsible.

Step 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.

“Do not wait the time will never be the time will never be just right. Start where you stand and work with whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along.”

Napoleon Hill

As mentioned by the author earlier in this book, the most outwardly identifiable quality of high performing person is action orientation. Highly productive people take the time to think, plan, and set priorities. They then launch quickly and strongly towards their goals and objectives. They work steadily, smoothly, and continuously and seem to go an enormous amount of work in the same time period that the average person spends socializing, wasting time, and working on low-value activities.

When you work on high-value tasks at a high and continuous level of activity, you can actually enter into an amazing mental state called flow. In the state of flow, which is the highest human state of performance and productivity, something almost miraculous happens to your mind and emotion. You feel elated and clear and almost everything that you do seems effortless and accurate. You feel happy and energized. You experience a tremendous sense of calm and personal effectiveness. Almost everyone has experienced this at some time but successful people get themselves into this state far more often than the average.

One of the ways that you can trigger this state of flow is by developing a sense of urgency. This is an inner drive and desire to get on with the job quickly and get it done fast. This inner drive is an impatience that motivates you to get going and to keep going.

A sense of urgency feels very much like racing against yourself. With this ingrained sense of urgency, you develop a bias-per-action. You take action rather than talking continually about what you are going to do. You focused on specific steps that you can take immediately. You concentrate on the things that you can do right now to get the results you want and achieve the goals that you desire.

A fast tempo seems to go hand in hand with all great success and developing this tempo requires that you start moving and keep moving at a steady rate. When you become an action-oriented person, you activate what is called the Momentum Principle of Success. This principle says that although it may take a tremendous amount of energy to overcome inertia, get going initially and it then takes far less energy to keep going.

A sense of urgency shifts you automatically on the fast track of your career. The faster you work, and the more you get done, the higher would be your level of self-esteem, self-respect, and personal pride.

One of the simplest and yet most powerful ways to get yourself started is to repeat the words – DO IT NOW! Over and over to yourself. If you feel yourself slowing or becoming distracted by conversations or low-value activities, repeat to yourself the words – BACK TO WORK! Over and over.

Nothing will help you more in your career than for you to have the reputation for being the kind of person who gets important work done, quickly and well. This reputation will make you one of the most valuable and respected people in your field.

Step 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.

“And herein lies the secret of true power. Learn, by constant practice, how to husband your resources, and concentrate them at any given moment, upon a given point.”

James Allen

Eat that frog! Every bit of planning prioritizing and organizing comes down to this simple concept. Your ability to select your most important task to begin and then concentrate on a single-mindedly until it is complete is the key to high levels of performance and personal productivity.

Every great achievement of humankind has been preceded by a long period of hard, concentrated work until the job was done. Single-handling requires that once you begin a task you keep working at it without diversion or distraction until the job is 100% complete.

The tendency to start and stop a task, to pick it up, put it down and come back to it, can increase the time necessary to complete the task by as much as 500%. So, the more you discipline yourself to work nonstop on a single task, the more you move forward along the efficiency curve. That means you get more and more high-quality work done in less and less time. Each time you stop working, however, you break this cycle and move backward on the curve to where every part of the task is more difficult and time-consuming.

Elbert Hubbard defines self-discipline as – the ability to make yourself do what you should do when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.

Success in any area requires tons of discipline. Self-mastery and self-control are the basic building blocks of character and high performance. Starting a high-priority task and persisting with that task until it is 100% complete, is the true test of your character, your willpower, and your resolve.

Persistence is actually self-discipline in action. The more you discipline yourself to persist on a major task, the more you like and respect yourself, and the higher your self-esteem. And the more you like and respect yourself, the easier it is for you to discipline yourself to persist even more.

Focusing clearly on your most valuable task and concentrating single-mindedly until it is 100% complete, can actually shape and move your own character. You become a superior person. You become a stronger, more confident, and happier person. You feel more powerful and productive. You eventually feel capable of setting and achieving any goal. You become the master of your own destiny. You place yourself on an ascending spiral of personal effectiveness on which your future is absolutely guaranteed.

Brian Tracy concluded, that the key to happiness, satisfaction, great success, and a wonderful feeling of personal power and effectiveness, is to develop the habit of eating your frog first thing, every day when you start work.

And that all of these are learnable skills that you can acquire through repetition and when you develop a habit of starting on your most important task before anything else. 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 will be unlimited. Just do it.

Eat that frog!