Eat that Frog 🐸
Book Summary & Key takeaways
The Book in 5 Line
- Your ‘frog’ is your biggest, most important task.
- If you have two frogs, eat the ‘ugliest’ one first.
- At breakfast, If you have to eat a frog, don’t procrastinate on it.
- The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place.
- Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.
The Five Big Ideas
- “The key to reaching high levels of performance and productivity is to develop the lifelong habit of tackling your major task first thing each morning.”
- “Think about your goals and review them daily. Every morning when you begin, take action on the most important task you can accomplish to achieve your most important goal at the moment.”
- “Think on paper.”
- “Always work from a list.”
- “Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.”
Chapter wise summary
Set the table
One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all.
Every morning when you begin, take action on the most important task you can accomplish to achieve your most important goal at the moment.
Think about your goals & review them daily.
Plan every day in advance
Make an Importance based to Do list
80/20 principle
Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work
Consider consequences
Long-term thinking improves short-term decision-making
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.
Ask yourself:
“What are my highest value activities?”
“What can I do that if done well will make a real difference?”
“What is the most valuable use of my time right now?”
“What is my biggest frog of all at this moment?”
Practice creative procrastination.
Your job is to deliberately procrastinate on tasks that are of low value so that you have more time for tasks that can make a big difference in your life and work
Say no clearly not half-heartedly
Continually review your life and work to find time-consuming tasks and activities that you can abandon. Cut down on television watching and instead spend time with your family, read, exercise, or do something else that enhances the quality of your life
ABCDE method
A — Very important, B — Should do, C — Nice to do, D — Delegate, E -Eliminate
Focus on key result areas
One of the greatest questions you will ever ask yourself: “What one skill, if I developed and did it excellently, would have the greatest positive impact on my career?”
Law of three
Choose the 3 tasks which accomplish 90% of the value & have to be performed daily
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Prepare before you begin
Launch immediately towards your goal, and don’t expect perfection.
Take It One Oil Barrel at a Time
focuses on a single action you can take.
Upgrade your skills
“Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.”
Identify key constraints
What is it in me, which is holding me back?
Put yourself under pressure
Work as though you have only one day to get your most important jobs done.
Maximize your personal powers
“What am I not doing that I should start doing if I want to perform at my best?”
Motivate yourself
Optimism is the most important quality you can develop for personal and professional success and happiness.
Get out of technological time sinks
Keep asking What’s important here? What is important in my personal life?
Slice & dice the task
Slice the task, and when completing the sliced task, give motivation.
Become action-oriented — Don’t delay taking actions
Develop a sense of urgency
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
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
