Eat the Frog

The Truth about Frogs

Mark Twain once said that if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long.

Your "frog" is your biggest, 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."

Take Action Immediately
Develop the Habits of Success: Your success in life and work will be determined by the kinds of habits that you develop over time
Develop a Positive Addiction: 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
No Short Cuts: Practice is the key to mastering any skill. With practice, you can learn any behavior or develop any habit that you consider either desirable or necessary
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 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 you do with determination until the habit is locked in and becomes a permanent part of your personality.

Visualise Yourself As You Want to Be: See yourself as the kind of person who gets important jobs done quickly and well on a consistent basis.

Chapter 1 Set the Table

Clarity is perhaps the most important concept in personal productivity. The number one reason why some people get more work done faster is because they are absolutely clear about their goals and objectives and they don't deviate from them.

A major reason for procrastination and lack of motivation is vagueness, confusion and fuzzy mindedness about what it is you are trying to do, and in what order and for what reason.

Here is a great rule for success: "Think on paper."

Seven-part method

Step One: Decide exactly what you want. Rule: “One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all.”

Step Two: Write it down. Think on paper. When you write your goal down, you crystallize it and give it tangible form. You create something that you can touch and see.

Step Three: Set a deadline on your goal. Set sub-deadlines if necessary. A goal or decision without a deadline has no urgency.

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. Organize your list by priority and sequence. Lay out your plan visually, in the form of a series of boxes and circles on a sheet of paper, with lines and arrows showing the relationship of each task to each other task.

Step Six: Take action on your plan immediately. Do something. Do anything. An average plan vigorously executed is far better than a brilliant plan on which nothing is done. For you to achieve any kind of success, execution is everything.

Step Seven: Resolve to do something every single day that moves you toward your major goal. Build this activity into your daily schedule. Whatever it is, you must never miss a day.

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.

Chapter 2 Plan Every day in Advance

Increase Your Return on Energy

The Six "P" Formula. It says, "Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance."

Two Extra Hours Per Day

Always work from a 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, by about two hours.

Make out your list the night before, at the end of the workday. Move everything that you have not yet accomplished onto your list for the coming day and then add everything that you have to do the next day.

Different Lists for Different Purposes

There are different lists that you need for different purposes.

First, you should create a master list on which you write down everything you can think of that you want to do some time in the future.
Second, you should have a monthly list that you make up at the end of the month for the month ahead.
Third, you should have a weekly list where you plan your entire week in advance.
Finally, you transfer items from your monthly and weekly lists onto your daily list. These are the specific activities that you are going to accomplish that day.

Planning a Project

Organize the project by priority and sequence. Layout the project in front of you on paper, or on a computer so that you can see every step and task.

One of the most important rules of personal effectiveness is the 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. You only have to try this rule once to prove it to yourself.

CHAPTER 3 Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything

It is also called the Pareto Principle after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first wrote about it in 1895.

This rule 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, and so on.

Number of Tasks versus Importance of Tasks

Often, one item on a list of ten things 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.

Focus on Activities versus Accomplishments

Before you begin work, always ask yourself, “Is this task in the top 20% of my activities or in the bottom 80%?” Remember, whatever you choose to do, over and over, eventually becomes a habit that is hard to break.

Rule: “Resist the temptation to clear up small things first.”

Motivate Yourself

Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control over the sequence of events. Time management is control over what you do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.

CHAPTER 4 Consider the Consequences

Rule: "Long-term thinking improves short-term decision making."

Successful people have a clear future-orientation.

Make Better Decisions about Time

Before starting on anything, you should always ask yourself, "What are the potential consequences of doing or not doing this task?"

Rule: "Future intent influences and often determines present actions."

Think about the Long Term

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.

Motivation requires motive.

Remember, the time is going to pass anyway. The only question is how you use it and where you are going to end up at the end. Thinking continually about the potential consequences of your choices, decisions and behaviors is one of the very best ways to determine you true priorities in your work and personal life.

Obey the Law of Forced Efficiency

This law says that, "There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing."

Rule: "There will never be enough time to do everything you have to do."

Deadlines Are an Excuse

It is much better to plan your time carefully in advance. How ever much time you think a task will take, add on another 20% or more, or make a game of getting in done well in advance of the deadline.

Three Questions for Maximum Productivity

What are my highest value activities?
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

CHAPTER 5 Practice Creative Procrastination

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

The fact is that you can't do everything that you have to do. You have to procrastinate on something! Therefore, procrastinate on small tasks.

Priorities versus Posteriorities

A priority is something that you do more of and sooner, while a posteriority is something that you do less of and later, if at all.

Rule: “You can only get your time and your life under control to the degree to which you discontinue lower value activities.”

Creative procrastination is the act of thoughtfully and deliberately deciding upon the exact things you are not going to do right now, if ever.

Procrastinate on Purpose

Your job is to deliberately procrastinate on those tasks that are of low value so that you have more time for those tasks that can make a big difference in your life and work.

Set Posteriorities on Time Consuming Activities

Look at your work activities and identify the tasks that you could delegate or eliminate to free up more time for the work that really counts. Begin today to practice creative procrastination, to set posteriorities wherever and whenever you can. This decision alone can enable to get your time and your life under control.

CHAPTER 6 Use the ABCDE Method Continually

The first law of success is concentration– to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right or to the left.

You start with a list of everything you have to do for the coming day. You then place an A, B, C, D or E before each item on your list before you begin the first task.

An "A" item is defined as something that is very important. This is something that you must do. This is a task for which there can be serious consequences if you do it or fail to do it, like visiting a key customer or finishing a report for your boss that she needs for an upcoming board meeting. These are the frogs of your life. If you have more than one "A" task, you prioritize these tasks by writing A-1, A-2, A-3, and so on in front of each item. Your A-1 task is your biggest, ugliest frog of all.
A "B" item is defined as a task that you should do. But it only has mild consequences. These are the tadpoles of your work life. This means that someone may be unhappy or inconvenienced if you don't do it, but it is nowhere as important as an "A" task. The rule is that you should never do a "B" task when there is an "A" task left undone.
A "C" task is defined as something that would be nice to do, but for which there are no consequences at all, whether you do it or not. "C" tasks include phoning a friend, having coffee or lunch with a coworker or completing some personal business during work hours. This sort of activity has no affect at all on your work life.
A "D" task is defined as something you can delegate to someone else. The rule is that you should delegate everything that anyone else can do so that you can free up more time for the "A" tasks that only you can do.
An "E" task is defined as something that you can eliminate altogether and it won't make any real difference. This may be a task that was important at one time but which is no longer relevant to yourself or anyone else. Often it is something you continue to do out of habit or because you enjoy it. But every minute that you spend on an “E” task is time taken away from a task or activity that can make a real difference in your life.

CHAPTER 7 Focus On Key Result Areas

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

Each job can be broken down into about five to seven key result areas, seldom more. These are the results that you absolutely, positively have to get to fulfill your responsibilities and make your maximum contribution to your organization.

The Big Seven in Management and Sales

The key result areas of management are:

1. Planning

2. Organizing

3. Staffing

4. Delegating

5. Supervising

6. Measuring

7. Reporting

These are the results that a manager must get to succeed in his or her area of responsibility. A weakness in any one of these areas can lead to underachievement and failure as a manager.

The key result areas of salespeople are:

1. Prospecting

2. Building Rapport and Trust

3. Identifying Needs

4. Presenting Persuasively

5. Answering Objections

6. Closing the Sale

7. Getting Resales and Referrals

Poor performance in any one of these key skills leads to lower sales and sometimes failure as a salesperson.

A key result area is defined as something for which you are completely responsible. This means that if you don't do it, it doesn't get done. 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.

Clarity Is Essential

The starting point of high performance is for you to first of all identify the key result areas of your work. Discuss them with your boss. Make a list of your most important output responsibilities and make sure that the people above you, next to you and below you are in agreement with it.

Give Yourself a Grade

Once you have determined your key result areas, the second step is for you to grade yourself on a scale of 1-10 in each of those areas. Where are you strong and where are you weak? Where are you getting excellent results and where are you underperforming?

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 key result areas but really poor in the seventh. And your poor performance in the seventh area will hold you back and determine how much you 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.

Poor Performance Produces Procrastination

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 setting a goal and making a plan to improve in a particular area, most people avoid that area altogether, which just makes the situation worse.

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.

CHAPTER 8 The Law of Three

There are three core tasks that you perform that contain most of the value that you contribute to your business or organization. Your ability to accurately identify these three key tasks and then to focus on them most of the time is essential for you to achieve at your best. Fully 90% of the value that you contribute to your company is contained in those three tasks, whatever they are.

Time Management Is a Means to an End

The main reason that you develop time management skills is so that you can get everything that is really important in your work completed so that you can free up more and more time for yourself.

Rule: It is quality of time at work that counts and quantity of time at home that matters.

Balance Is Not an Option

One of the most famous sayings of the ancient Greeks was “Moderation in all things.” You need to balance between your work and your personal life all the time.

CHAPTER 9 Prepare Thoroughly Before You Begin

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

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. When you are fully prepared, you are like a cocked gun or an archer with an arrow pulled back taut in the bow. You just need one small mental push to get started on your highest value tasks.

Create a Comfortable Work Space

Begin by clearing off your desk or workspace so that you only have one task in front of you. 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.

Launch toward Your Dreams

Once you have completed your preparations, it is essential that you launch immediately toward your goals. Get started. Do the first thing, whatever it is. Rule is “get it 80% right and then correct it later.” Don’t expect perfection the first time, or even the first few times. Be prepared to fail over and over before you get it right.

CHAPTER 10 Take It One Oil Barrel at A Time

you can 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 further. 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, a great career is built by performing one task at a time, quickly and well, and then going on to the next task.

CHAPTER 11 Upgrade Your Key Skills

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

Continually upgrade your skills in your key result areas. Remember, however good you are today, your knowledge and skill is becoming obsolete at a rapid rate.

One piece of information or one additional skill can make an enormous difference in your ability to do the job well. Identify the most important things you do and then make a plan to continually upgrade your skills in those areas.

Rule: “Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.”

Three Steps to Mastery

First, read in your field for at least one hour every day. Get up a little earlier in the morning and read for 30-60 minutes in a book or magazine that contains information that can help you to be more effective and productive at what you do.

Second, take every course and seminar available on key skills that can help you.

Third, listen to audio programs in your car. Turn driving time into learning time.

The more you learn and know, the more confident and motivated you feel. You better you become, the more capable you will be of doing even more in your field.

CHAPTER 12 Leverage Your Special Talents

“Do your work. Not just your work and no more, but a little more for the lavishings sake – that little more that is worth all the rest.”

Increase Your Earning Ability

Your most valuable asset, in terms of cash flow, is your "earning ability." Your ability to work enables you to bring tens of thousands of dollars into your life every year by simply applying your knowledge and skills to your world. This is your ability to eat specific frogs faster and better than others.

Do What You Love to Do

One of your great responsibilities in life is for you to decide for yourself what it is that you really love to do and then to throw your whole heart into doing that special thing very, very well.

You should always focus your best energies and abilities on starting and completing those key tasks where your unique talents and abilities enable you to do it 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.

CHAPTER 13 Identify Your Key Constraints

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

Ask yourself these questions: What is holding you back? What sets the speed at which you achieve your goals? What determines how fast you move from where you are to where you want to go? What stops you or holds you back from eating the frogs that can really make a difference? Why aren’t you at your goal already?

Whatever you have to do, there is 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 then focus all of your energies on alleviating that single chokepoint.

Identify the Limiting Factor

The accurate 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 Applied to Constraints

The 80/20 Rule also 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. Or they are contained within your own company or organization.

Only 20% of the limiting factors are external to you or to your organization. Only 20% are on the outside, in the form of competition, markets, governments or other organizations.

Your key constraint can be something small and not particularly obvious. Sometimes it requires that you make a list of every step in the process and examine every activity to determine exactly what it is that is holding you back. Sometimes, it can be a single negative perception or objection on the part of the customers that is slowing down the entire sales process. Sometimes it is the absence of a single feature that is holding back the growth of sales of a product or service line.

Look Into Yourself

Successful people always begin the analysis of constraints by asking the question, "What is it in me that is holding me back?" They accept complete responsibility for their lives and look to themselves for both the cause and cure of their problems.

Keep asking, "What sets the speed at which I get the results I want?

Strive for Accuracy

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 off in the wrong direction. You can end up solving the wrong problem.

Behind every constraint or chokepoint, once it is located and alleviated successfully, you will find another constraint or limiting factor.

Often, 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 there is always something. Often alleviating a key constraint or limiting factor is the most important frog you could eat at that moment.

CHAPTER 14 Put the Pressure on Yourself

To reach your full potential, you must form the habit of putting the pressure on yourself, and not waiting for someone else to come along and do it for you.

Lead the Field

See yourself as a role model for others. Raise the bar on yourself. 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 are paid for.

Create Imaginary Deadlines

One of the best ways for you to overcome procrastination is by working as though you only had one day to get your most important jobs done before you left for a month or went on vacation.

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.

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 the habit of rapid task completion that then goes on to serve you all the days of your life.

CHAPTER 15 Maximize Your Personal Powers

One of the most important requirements for being happy and productive is for you to guard and nurture your energy levels at all times.

Overworking Can Mean Underproducing

The fact is that your productivity begins to decline after eight or nine hours of work.

Work at Your Own Pace

There are specific times during the day when you are at your best. You need to identify these times and discipline yourself to use them on your most important and challenging tasks. A major reason for procrastination is fatigue, or attempting to start on a task when you are tired out.

Whenever you feel overtired and overwhelmed with too much to do and too little time, stop yourself and just say, "All I can do is all I can do."

Sometimes the very best use of your time is to go home early and go to bed and sleep for ten hours straight. This can completely recharge you and enable you to get two or three times as much done the following day, and of a far higher quality, than if you had continued working long into the night.

Here is a rule for you. Take at least one full day off every week. During this day, either Saturday or Sunday, you must absolutely refuse to read, clear correspondence, catch up on things from the office or do anything else that taxes your brain. Instead, you go to a movie, exercise, spend time with your family, go for a walk or any activity that allows your brain to completely recharge itself. It is true that “a change is as good as a rest.”

Guard Your Physical Health

In addition to lots of rest, and to keep your energy levels at their highest, be careful about what you eat. Start the day with a high protein, low fat and low carbohydrate breakfast. Eat salads with fish or chicken at lunch. Avoid sugar, salt, white flour products or deserts. Avoid soft drinks and candy bars or pastries. Feed yourself as you would feed a world class athlete before a competition, because in many respects, that’s what you are before starting work each day.

Aim to exercise about 200 minutes each week, the agreed-upon standard for excellent levels of fitness. This is equal to 30 minutes per day, and can be achieved by going for a walk before or after work, or walking short stretches during the day. You can swim, use exercise equipment or play different sports, but build exercise into your daily routine, just as if it was a business appointment.

CHAPTER 16 Motivate Yourself into Action

Most of your emotions, positive or negative, are determined by how you talk to yourself on a 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, whether they energize or de-energize you.

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

Develop a Positive Mental Attitude

It turns out that optimists have three special behaviors, all learned through practice and repetition.

First, optimists look for the good in every situation.
Second, optimists always seek the valuable lesson in every setback or difficulty. They believe that, ”difficulties come not to obstruct, but to instruct.”
Third, optimists always look for the solution to every problem.
Fourth, optimists think and talk continually about their goals. They think about what they want and how to get it, most of the time.

CHAPTER 17 Get Out Of the Technological Time Sinks

For you to stay calm, clear headed and capable of performing at your best, you need to detach on a regular basis from the technology and communication devices that can overwhelm you if you are not careful.

A Servant, Not a Master

For you to be able to concentrate on those few things that make most of the difference in your business or personal life, you must discipline yourself to use technology as a servant, not a master. Technology is there to help you, not to hinder you. The purpose of technology is to make your life smoother and easier, not to create complexity, confusion and stress.

Leave your cell phone off. Leave your computer off until you have planned and organized your day. Continuous Contact Is Not Essential

CHAPTER 18 Slice and Dice the Task

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

Salami slice method

One technique that you slice it down into small pieces. Psychologically, you will find it easier to do a single, small piece of a large project than to start on the whole job.

Develop a Compulsion to Closure

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 soon develop an inner drive that motivates you to carry through to completion. This completion gives you the great feeling of happiness and satisfaction that accompanies any success.

Swiss Cheese Your Tasks

Another technique you can use to get yourself going is called the "Swiss cheese" method of working. You use this technique to get yourself into gear by resolving to punch a hole into the task, like a hole in a block of Swiss Cheese.

You Swiss cheese a task when you resolve to work for a specific time period on a task. This may be as little as five or ten minutes, after which you will stop and do something else. You will just take one bite of your frog and then rest, or do something else. Once you start working, you develop a sense of forward momentum and a feeling of accomplishment. You become energized and enthusiastic. You feel yourself internally motivated and propelled to keep going until the task is complete.

CHAPTER 19 Create Large Chunks of Time

Schedule Blocks of Time

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.

Use a Time Planner

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.

Make Every Minute Count

One of the keys to high levels of performance and productivity is for you to make every minute count.

CHAPTER 20 Develop A Sense of Urgency

Working in the “Zone”

When you work on your most important tasks at a high and continuous level of activity, you can actually enter into an amazing mental state called "flow." Really successful people are those who get themselves into this state far more often than the average.

In the state of "flow," which is the highest human state of performance and productivity, you feel elated and clear. Everything you do seems effortless and accurate. You feel happy and energized. You experience a tremendous sense of calm and increased personal effectiveness.

You often come up with brilliant ideas and insights that enable you to move ahead even more rapidly.

Trigger Yourself into High Performance

One of the ways you can trigger this state of flow is by developing a "sense of urgency.” With this ingrained sense of urgency, you develop a "bias for action." You concentrate on the things you can do right now to get the results you want and achieve the goals you desire.

Build Up a Sense of Momentum

When you regularly take continuous action toward your most important goals, you activate the "Momentum Principle” of success. This principle says that although it may take tremendous amounts of energy to overcome inertia and get started initially, it then takes far less energy to keep going.

Do It Now!

One of the simplest and yet most powerful ways to get yourself started is to repeat the words, "Do it now! Do it now! Do it now!" over and over to yourself.

If you feel yourself slowing down or becoming distracted by conversations or low value activities, repeat to yourself the words, "Back to work! Back to work! Back to work!" over and over.

CHAPTER 21 Single Handle Every Task

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 it and then to concentrate on it single-mindedly until it is complete is the key to high levels of performance and personal productivity.

Once You Get Going, Keep Going

Single handling requires that once you begin, you keep working at the task, without diversion or distraction, until the job is 100% complete. You keep urging yourself onward by repeating the words "Back to work!" over and over whenever you are tempted to stop or do something else.

By concentrating single-mindedly on your most important task, you can reduce the time required to complete it by 50% or more.

It has been estimated that 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%.

Self Discipline Is the Key

Self-discipline can be defined as, "The ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not."

Persistence is actually self-discipline in action. The good news is that the more you discipline yourself to persist on a major task, the more you like and respect yourself, and the higher is your self-esteem.

And the more you like and respect yourself, the easier it is for you to discipline yourself to persist even more.

CONCLUSION Putting It All Together

The key to happiness, satisfaction, great success and a wonderful feeling of persona power and effectiveness is for you to develop the habit of eating your frog, first thing every day when you start work.

Fortunately, this is a learnable skill that you can acquire through repetition. And when you develop the habit of starting on your most important task, before anything else, your success is assured.

Here is a summary of the 21 Great Ways to stop procrastinating and get more things done faster. Review these rules and principles regularly until they become firmly ingrained in your thinking and actions and your future will be guaranteed.

Set the table: Decide exactly what you want. Clarity is essential. Write out your goals and objectives before you begin;
Plan every day in advance: Think on paper. Every minute you spend in planning can save you five or ten minutes in execution;
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;
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;
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;
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:
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;
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;
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.
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;
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;
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:
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;
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;
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;
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;
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;
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;
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;
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;
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.

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.

Summary of Eat that Frog