Eat That Frog is a productivity / prioritization classic with a little bit of a corny name.
The whole concept of eating your frogs is based on the premise that if you “ate a live frog every morning that would be the hardest thing you do all day.”
The general premise of “eating your frogs” entails:
- Getting your 3 “most important tasks” for the next day written down the night before.
- Prioritizing the hard stuff/ the stuff that will get the most results, not yielding to the temptation to ‘knock out the easy stuff first.’
- Focusing on getting your 3 most important tasks first thing in the day and making sure to block time to complete these 3 things.
Brian Tracy has a strong inclination that getting up early will help you eat more frogs and be significantly more productive. Blocking time is a big key to making this happen, because when you create intentional undistracted time that’s when your work will get done. It just so happens that a lot of times – the morning can be a great place to get undistracted time.
Because, of course, so many of the things that drain our time come from the outside and we need to protect ourselves with the word “no:”
- You can say no to anything that isn’t a clear high-value use of time
- Saying no is a magical way to create more time
- Say no regularly as a very effective time-management strategy.
- Say no early and often!
Sometimes when someone is delegating something to you, they really just need to get it off their plate at that particular moment – they’re not saying you have to get it done just that moment. If you really can’t say no, give them assurances that it will be done and by when. If your team is interrupting your workflow multiple times a day with emergencies, or things that can’t be placed in your regular queue– it might be time to push back and clearly and calmly tell them that you work better when you can create your own priorities.
Everyone works a little different, though, so if you’re the type of person that doesn’t mind other people driving your time then maybe another person setting your priorities works for you. For me, it would drive me nuts.
Write it down:
So much of this premise is based on you writing down the key things you need to do, and your most important goals. Write down your most important goals and then write down what you will need to do to get there. Writing it down is essential, and there’s something about physically writing that helps engrain our priorities and our goals in our minds.
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