Dear daughter,
Eat that frog is a great book I want you to read. Don’t worry, it is not about eating frogs. It is a metaphor that the author uses when he refers to doing things you don’t want to do because they are boring, time-consuming or any other excuse you can imagine for not doing something important.
Like many of Brian Tracy’s books, this one is about personal growth and time management.
He shows 21 ways for us to start doing what we need to do to bring important changes in our lives.
In his book, Brian starts describing the wonderful time we are in currently.
There are plenty of opportunities to do great things, and for that reason, one needs to be selective.
In short, don’t try to get into every single possibility that comes across you. Choose wisely in what to invest your time. As many successful people use to say, it is probably more important to know when to say know, than to say yes to “certain opportunities”.
This is another way of saying that you should focus, trying to put on your mouth more than you can chew is never a good idea.
Robert Kiyosaki also talks about this when he said “Mind your own business” in his book Rich Dad Poor Dad. You can find a summary of the book here.
Next, Brian tells us what a frog is. It is the biggest most important task we have on a day, and probably the one we will procrastinate on if we don’t act consciously.
So, if you “eat a frog” early in the morning, you can go through your day knowing that the worst part of your day already happened.
A great concept, isn’t it?
I apply this in my daily routines. I like to exercise first thing in the morning. It was my most important goal to lose weight so exercising was my frog. I did it as my first task every day. As a result, I got a feeling of accomplishment throughout the day. A great feeling to have, by the way.
Apart from that, it brought extra benefits. I did lose weight, and if a friend calls me to go out for a couple of beers after work, I could go because I exercised already. This gave me also a feeling of freedom. Freedom to do anything I wanted to do later in the day because I had already done what mattered most.
So, my daughter, don’t underestimate the benefits of “eating the frog” early in the morning.
“The first rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.”
Do you get the idea?
If you have two big important things to do on a specific day, do the most important first, which probably will be the hardest and biggest.
Once you start doing this regularly, it will become a habit. Habits are of utmost importance in our lives.
If you get the right habits, you will be able to achieve anything you want. On the other side, you don’t get good habits, or what is the same, you only get bad habits, it will be extremely difficult for you to achieve something in life.
Yes, my daughter, if you don’t have good habits, then you have bad habits.
Think about it.
A good habit can be reading books to learn new things. If you don’t have this habit, you will probably spend much of your nighttime watching TV. And yes, that one can be a bad habit.
If you don’t have the good habit of waking up early, you might have the bad habit of sleeping too much.
So, make sure you create good habits, and you keep yourself away from the bad ones.
There are no shortcuts in life. To achieve great things, you must put in the effort. You will find that this is a recurrent topic in most books about personal growth and success in life. If it does not require any effort from you, probably is not good. Just remember the phrase “It is too good to be true”. Sometimes this can keep you away from scams and “get rich quick” schemes.
At this point in the book, the author starts to show the 21 ways to stop procrastinating. Each one has a chapter in the book.
Just to clarify something, the author gives more than 21 insights to stop procrastinating and create success for yourself. At least I see it like that. When you read the book, you will find that from the introduction the author is giving us useful tips and guidance on how to stop procrastinating and achieve greater success.
So, chapter 1 shows us the importance of knowing what we really want. To have clarity on what we want to achieve. What is our burning desire?
This is the first step of goal setting. As I mentioned in the summary of Brian Tracy’s book named Goals!
Not having clarity on what you really want can lead to confusion. And as always told you, what you really want should be on paper. Read it every day and talk about it to your closest people.
One of the main reasons for procrastination is that sometimes, we don’t know what we really want.
So, write it down! And have it in a visible place, so that you can read it every day, as many times as possible.
Also, when you write your goals, remember they should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
Chapter 2 tells you to plan every day in advance. This is another source of clarity in your daily life.
It feels so good to wake up in the morning knowing what you have to do during the day!
As the opposite of thinking at every moment, what should I do now?
Planning in advance is the best way I know of having control in your life. When you plan in advance, you decide what to do and when to do it. When you don’t plan, life happens to you, instead of you enjoying your life.
A topic closely related to this is budgeting. Budgeting is just planning your expenses in advance. If you don’t have a budget, you will find yourself not knowing where your money went. However, if you create your budget, you will decide where you put your money, until the last cent. This, my daughter, is another good habit we should have in our lives.
The next suggestion of Brian Tracy to stop procrastination is to always apply the 80/20 rule.
This rule states that 80% of your results, are a consequence of 20% of what you do. If you can identify what is the 20%, when you do more of it, you will get more results.
In this book summary, you can find more about this rule, and examples of how it works.
Do you see now how every topic I want you to read about and learn, clicks together?
Yes, my daughter, I want you to read and learn because it is useful, it is not just because I want you to do what I like to do.
Consider the consequences, is the next chapter in the book.
This is about helping yourself make better decisions.
One way the author suggests you can consider the consequences is to ask yourself: what task can I be doing now, that will have the greatest impact on achieving my goals?
Ask yourself this question repeatedly, every day, every hour, every time you feel you don’t know what to do or you feel lazy.
This will improve your long-term thinking. It will also help you to focus on your goals. Remember from above? Focus? Mind your business?
Yes, everything is interlinked. It is a web of good habits that will lead you to success.
Next, the author invites you to use zero-based thinking.
“Ask yourself continually, If I were not doing this already, knowing what I now know, would I start doing it again today?” – Brian Tracy.
This question will help you to cut out your losses.
Sometimes we start certain projects, because of several reasons. It is important to have and test new ideas. It is also important to know when to drop them.
I’ll summarize the rest of the tips and advice in a short list, so the summary does not get too long:
- Prioritize your tasks. Make sure you know what the most important tasks are, according to your goals.
- Determine what are your key areas and focus on them. In life, we must do many things. However, there are key areas in which we must excel if we want to be successful. Yes, this is related to the 80/20 rule and prioritization of goals and tasks.
- Apply the law of three. Determine what are the three most important tasks you must do to grow your career. Identify your three most important goals. Prioritize and execute.
- Prepare before you begin. The author refers here to your work and how you should prepare every day before starting working. I’ll add here always prepare before you begin with any project. If you want to get into something new, don’t just get into it. Study first, prepare for what can happen, and understand the risks and benefits and how will contribute to your goals. Only after that, start new projects.
- Take one step at a time.
- Upgrade your key skills. As I use to tell you, never stop learning.
- Identify your key constraints. And take action, do something to overcome those constraints.
- Put the pressure on yourself. Work on deadlines and take responsibility.
- Motivate yourself into action. Control your thoughts and keep your mind positive.
- Technology is a terrible master. Remember what I told you about how you use your cellphone? You can read it here from someone else. In summary, refuse to be a slave to technology: cellphone, TV, computer, etc.
- Technology is a wonderful servant. Use it as a tool, not as a way of living.
- Focus your attention.
- Slice and dice the task.
- Create large chunks of time.
- Develop a sense of urgency. Take action. Just do it!
- Single handle every task.
Dear daughter, I hope you like what you learned from this summary. However, I can assure you that if you read the whole book, you will learn a lot more. The explanations that Brian Tracy gives in his book are great and worth the time.
Love you, Dad.
I share the letters I write to my daughter so more people can benefit from them. If you want to buy this book, you can check it out on Amazon using this link.