PDF Summary:Eat That Frog!, by Brian Tracy

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The Key Insight

Tracy discovered that the key to success is to focus on your most important task and do it quickly and well.

He offers practical tips building on that insight for personal effectiveness. The book doesn’t delve into psychology, research, or theory—it focuses on specific things you can do immediately to get results and be happier. Each idea is aimed at boosting your performance and value. Many of the ideas also can work in your personal life.

The more quickly you put these principles into practice, the faster you’ll advance in your career.

(Shortform note: To clarify the principles and reduce repetition, this summary consolidates overlapping chapters.)

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It’s one of the keys to long-term success and living a happy life. When you have a success habit, it becomes easier to do the important things than to dodge them.

There are three steps to developing the focus and perseverance to get things done: decide, discipline yourself, and practice:

1. Decide to make getting important things done a habit.
2. Discipline yourself to apply the principles in this book.
3. Practice the habit until it becomes automatic.

Visualize a New You

You can use the technique of visualization to speed up your progress toward increasing your productivity.

Your self-image drives your behavior—so to improve yourself, you need to change your mental picture. Think constantly about the benefits of being focused and getting things done. Visualize yourself getting important jobs done quickly and well. For instance, if you have a major presentation to prepare for, visualize yourself sitting at your desk, entirely focused on your task, ignoring your phone and email, and persevering until you’re fully prepared.

Your ability to learn and develop success habits is unlimited. When you train yourself to do the important things—to eat your...

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4) Turn the list into a plan: Prioritize your tasks, and list things in the order they need to be done. You may want to depict your plan with boxes, circles, and arrows to help show the relationships between tasks. With a written goal and a plan, you’ll be far more productive than if you had only a mental list.

5) Set a deadline for reaching your goal: Set an overall deadline plus sub-deadlines for the steps toward your goal. A goal needs definite deadlines with specific responsibilities to be completed—otherwise, you’ll procrastinate and get little done.

6) Act on your plan: Just do something. Your plan may not be perfect, but it’s better to act on an average plan than to do nothing with a great plan.

7) Do something every day to advance your goal: Put it on your schedule. For example, make a certain number of cold calls or exercise for 45 minutes. Don’t miss a day. Keep pressing forward.

Review Your Goals Daily

Specific, written goals change your thinking. They motivate and energize you, and help you avoid procrastination. The more ambitious they are, the more they inspire you; the more you dwell on them, the more driven you are to achieve...

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• Weekly list: Use this list to plan the next week. Build it as things come up during the current week.
• Daily list: List specific tasks you’re going to complete that day. Move items from your monthly and weekly lists to your daily list. Throughout the day, check off items as you do them to visually show your accomplishments, create a sense of momentum, and motivate you.

Working from lists will make you feel confident that you’re on top of things and not forgetting anything.

Planning a Project

When you have a project or task to do, start by making a list of each step required for completing it. Organize the steps by priority and by when they need to be completed. Use project-planning software or a sheet of paper to display the tasks so you can see every step. Implement it step by step.

Planning a project in advance will greatly reduce the amount of time and effort required to accomplish it. The 10/90 rule of planning states: Spending 10% of your time on a task planning it will reduce the time required to complete it by 90%.

In addition, when you have a plan for your day, it’s easier to get started and keep going.

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Take Control

The hardest part of tackling big things is getting started, but once you start, you'll be motivated to continue by the excitement of working on something that makes a difference. Keep building on this energy and stimulating your mind by doing the important things. The feeling of satisfaction you get from completing a big, important job will motivate you to do more.

When you develop the ability to prioritize your time this way, you’re really managing yourself and your life. By taking control over what you do next—choosing the important over the unimportant—you’re managing the sequence of events in your life and setting yourself up for success.

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Time passes regardless of what you do with it—but how you use it, or what you do in the short term, determines where you end up down the road. Thinking about future consequences helps you determine your priorities.

Deadlines and ‘The Law of Forced Efficiency’

The “Law of Forced Efficiency” states that while there isn't time to do everything, there’s sufficient time to do the most important thing.

You experience this when you have an imminent deadline on an important project. When you know the consequences of missing a deadline on a key task and time is running out, you find a way to get the task done, often at the last minute. You do whatever it takes in order to avoid the consequences of missing the deadline. You’re forced—or force yourself—to be efficient.

Sometimes, deadline pressure is the result of having multiple important things to do—many managers under this kind of pressure are working at 110% of capacity. The only recourse is to focus on each top thing in turn. But deadline pressure also can be self-imposed—a result of procrastination. This kind of deadline pressure works against you.

Many people say they work better under deadline pressure, but research...

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There are some activities that you can stop altogether—for instance, watching television or spending time on social media. Instead, do something that enhances your life or career, such as spending time with your family, exercising, or furthering your education.

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E: These are tasks you can eliminate. They include things that were important at one time but are no longer relevant, or unnecessary things that have become habits. Any time spent on one of these tasks is time diverted from an “A” task.

It’s important to discipline yourself to start on your A-1 task immediately and persevere to completion. By prioritizing your work and getting the important things done, you’ll accomplish more than several people’s efforts combined.

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Weak performance in a certain area can also lead you to procrastinate in that area or avoid it. Instead of ignoring or rationalizing your weaknesses, focus on the expectations you need to meet and develop a plan for excelling in all areas. The better you get, the more motivated you’ll be to complete the important tasks.

A Clarifying Question

To help guide your career, here’s a useful question to ask yourself: What skill would have the greatest impact on furthering my career if I excelled at it?

Look inside yourself for the answer—you may already know it. Also, ask your boss, colleagues, and coworkers. Then, make a plan and start working to improve your performance in this area. You should have confidence in your ability to improve because most skills in business are learnable.

You’ll be able to overcome procrastination and get more done faster when you perform well in every key result area, in the process also boosting your career.

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Most happiness in life comes from having strong relationships with other people. You build strong relationships by spending time nurturing them. Being more efficient at work frees more time for you to spend with loved ones.

At work, the quality of your time counts; at home, it's the quantity of time that counts most.

So when you’re at work, work the whole time. Don’t waste time—focus on what you need to accomplish to do well at your job and do it. When you’re efficient at work, you don’t have to stay late or take work home with you, cutting into your personal time.

That’s how you achieve the work-life balance that many people strive for. Your goal should be to do your best at work while not losing sight of the reasons you’re working: to have strong relationships and a satisfying life.

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Author Brian Tracy crossed the featureless Sahara Desert in Algeria this way—by focusing one at a time on oil barrels that were placed at five-kilometer intervals to mark the route. He kept an eye on each barrel until he reached it, at which point he could see the next one.

Similarly, in completing your task, go as far as you can and, as you reach each milestone, you’ll be able to identify and move toward the next one. Focus on the current step and have confidence that, when you complete it, you’ll know the next step.

Alternatively, imagine your large task is a salami that you’ve cut into thin slices, and you only need to eat one small slice at a time.

One factor in your favor is that humans have a psychological need for closure or completion. You have a subconscious need to get tasks done and not leave things hanging. When you’re pushing toward completion and when you finish a task, you feel happy because the completion triggers the release of endorphins. Finishing each step of a bigger task can make you feel good and motivate you to press on to final completion. Completing the task in its entirety makes you feel even better.

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1) Read about your field or industry daily. Also, read books and articles about personal development and productivity.

2) Take courses and seminars addressing skills you need. Attend conferences and business meetings of your profession or occupation.

3) Listen to audio programs in your car. The average driver spends 500 to 1,000 hours a year on the road. Use this time to learn.

You build mental muscle or brain power by using your brain—so the more you learn, the more you expand your capacity to learn. The only limits to how far you can go are the limits of your imagination.

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For instance, one company attributed lagging sales to its sales staff and management, and the company restructured the whole department in response. But this tactic failed to improve sales because the major constraint holding back sales was incorrect pricing, not the sales staff. Once they focused on the right thing, sales took off again.

Once you fix the biggest constraint, you may find another that’s now the biggest. Identify and remove each as you find it. Removing the most consequential bottlenecks will motivate and energize you to push your task to completion.

Removing a limiting factor may be your most important task—or frog to eat—at the moment.

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When you continually talk positively to yourself, you feel more focused, confident, and eager to tackle challenging jobs.

Push Yourself

Another way to stay motivated is to challenge yourself. To reach your potential, push yourself to identify and tackle your most important tasks, or your biggest frogs. Set a higher bar for your performance than anyone else would set for you: start work earlier, stay later, and do more than anyone expects of you.

One way to push yourself to beat procrastination and get more done is by giving yourself deadlines and sub-deadlines. For instance, work as if you had only one day to get your most critical job done. Imagine you have to leave town for a month tomorrow. What task would you most want to get done before leaving? Work on that first. (This is different from the harmful pressure you put on yourself when you plan poorly or have to rush due to prior procrastination.)

Setting a deadline or high standard and pushing yourself to meet it increases your confidence and self-esteem. It also builds the habit of productivity. Continually pressure yourself to become a high-achiever.

Act With Urgency

Acting with urgency is the...

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When you’re working on a high-value task, close all computer windows, websites, and programs you aren’t using for the task. Turn off phone alerts and notifications.

Some people keep alerts and notifications turned on all the time because they want to be reachable in a potential family emergency. But rather than making yourself available to everyone 24/7, you can adjust your phone settings to limit your calls and texts to emergencies or certain people only. Take control by responding to messages by choice rather than reactively. Similarly, use your email program’s features to sort and prioritize emails.

Use Digital Tools

Use your online or paper calendar to block out time for your important tasks the same way you would block appointments and meetings. You can also use digital productivity tools or software to help you manage tasks and delegate them.

Some people hesitate to use digital tools because they require learning new software and systems. However, everything can be learned. Take advantage of any available training—the time you spend learning new tools will pay off in greater efficiency. Accept that everyone gets frustrated with technology occasionally. Remember,...

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The more self-discipline you develop to stay focused, the more you increase your efficiency, or ability to do high-level work in less time. Self-discipline and persistence are qualities of character that help you get things done and also build your self-respect.

Use a Planner

Using a planner can help you create uninterrupted time each day to complete your most important tasks. Block out time—preferably in 60- to 90- minute stretches—for these tasks, treat it like an appointment, and keep it.

Your blocked-off time doesn’t have to happen at the office. Some people find it’s productive to get up early and work for several hours at home, where there are fewer interruptions, before going to the office. If you travel for business purposes, you can use time at the airport and in the air to work with few interruptions.

Mapping out your time in a planner helps you build your work time around getting your most important tasks done without interruption.

What You Can Do

To minimize distractions and interruptions:

• Don’t check your email the moment you wake up—this starts your day with a dopamine rush that you’ll keep trying to repeat.
• If you have to...

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10) Take it step by step: Make a big job doable is by breaking into smaller steps and focusing on one step at a time.

11) Build your skills: Continually upgrade your skills to increase your value and productivity and advance your career.

12) Identify your biggest limitation: Identify the biggest thing that’s holding you, your project, or the company back and eliminate it. Removing it will significantly speed up your progress toward your goal.

13) Motivate yourself: To reach your potential, continually push yourself to complete your most important tasks. Set your own deadlines and race to beat them. Coach yourself: use your inner voice to encourage and urge you to excel. Approach your work with a sense of urgency, or a compulsion to get on with the job and get it done.

14) Make technology work for you: Take control of your devices by using the available features to organize your work, remind you of what’s important, and keep unimportant things from distracting you.

15) Stay focused: Focus on your most important task for two sustained 90-minute periods each morning. Use a planner to block out this time and stick to it. Eliminate interruptions and...