While I was in Costa Rica I finished reading EAT THAT FROG! by Brian Tracy. I always thought it had a funny title, but it actually makes perfect sense. Here's some highlights from the book that taught me to put productivity first.
The Frog In Front of You
When Tracy says “frog”, he really means the big, sometimes ugly, thing we have to do to get the job done. It's usually the thing that makes us procrastinate — that thing on your “to do” list that you keep putting off.
Your frog is the task that's stopping you from putting productivity first.
Put Productivity First: Eat the Frog
Tracy references a concept first introduced by Mark Twain to help us understand how to conquer our every day 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.”
Tracy gives us these two rules about how to eat our frogs effectively:
“The first rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first... The second rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat a live frog at all, it doesn't pay to sit and look at it for very long.”
In other words, if you want to put productivity first, you have to get your biggest task out of the way, right away.
With that being said, I have to ask...
What frog should you eat today?
Take Your Productivity to the Next Level
If you're serious about reaching your goals, you'll need to take your productivity up a notch. To level up your goal-setting game, check out THIS blog post on accountability partners.
After all, there's only so much we can do by ourselves.