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title: Eat That Frog!

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# Eat That Frog!

Author: Brian Tracy
Created By: Ouwel Zhang
Last Edited: Apr 28, 2020 8:35 PM
Tags: Productivity

Intorduction

- 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.

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Chapter 1: Set the Table

- Think on paper
- Exercise
    - Step one: Decide exactly what you want
    - Step two: Write it down
    - Step three: Set a deadline on your goal; set sub-deadlines if necessary
    - Step four: Make a list of everything you can think of what you are going to have to do to achieve your goal
    - Step five: Organize the list into a plan
    - Step six: Take action on your plan immediately
    - Step seven: Resolve to do something every single day that moves you toward your major goal

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Chapter 2: Plan Every Day in Advance

- Write down your tasks for the day the night before on paper
- Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now
- "Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance"
- Make your list the night before for the workday ahead
- One of the most important rules of personal effectiveness is the 10/90 Rule. This rule says that the first 10 percent of time that you spend planning and organizing your work before you begin will save you as much as 90 percent of the time in getting the job done once you get started

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Chapter 3: Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything

- 20 percent of task get 80 percent of the job done
- Rule: Resist the temptation clear up small things first

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Chapter 4: Consider the Consequences

- Rule: Long-term thinking improves short-term decision making
- Unsuccessful people go for short-term pleasure and immediate gratification
- Make tasks with large potential positive consequences your top priority
- Deadlines cause great stress and a worse output

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Chapter 5: Practice Creative Procrastination

- Single out the relatively few small jobs that absolutely must be done immediately in the morning
- The difference between high performers and low performers is largely determined by what they chose to procrastinate on
- Say no! Say it regularly as a normal part of your time management vocabulary
- zero based thinking - would you continue your habit if you were new to it?
- Examine EACH of your personal and work activities and evaluate it based on your current situation. Select at least one activity to abandon immediately or at least deliberately put off until your more important goals have been achieved. (Golf example)

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Chapter 6: Use the ABCDE Method Continually

- Rank your tasks by their urgency/importance to accomplish them
- A - something that you must do, B - something that you should do, C - tasks that are nice to do (going out for coffee with colleagues), D - tasks you can delegate, E - task that you can eliminate

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Chapter 7: Focus on Key Result Areas

- Key result ares: something for which you are completely responsible
- Find your weak skills by grading your performance in these areas and improve them
    - DON'T avoid or abandon your weak key result areas
    - Discuss them with your boss if necessary
- "What one skill, if I developed and did it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on my career?"

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Chapter 8: Apply the Law of Three

- Three core tasks that you perform contain most of the value that you contribute to your business or organization
- Rule: It is the *quality* of time at work that counts and the *quantity* of time at home that matters

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Chapter 9: Prepare Thoroughly Before you Begin

- First step of preparation should be your work space, the cleaner and neater, the more productive you can be.
- So many things in life never get accomplish, simply because people fail to take the first step of preparing everything in advance.
- Get started. Do the first thing, whatever it is

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Chapter 10: Take It one Oil Barrel at a Time

- A great life or a great career is built by performing one task at a time.
- Make a list of all the steps you will need to take to eventually complete the task.
- "Take it one step at a time"

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Chapter 11: Upgrade Your Key Skills 

- Learn what you need to learn so that you can do your work in an excellent fashion.
- The better you become at eating a particular type of frog, the more likely you are to just plunge in and get it done.
- A major reason for procrastination is a feeling of inadequacy, a lack of confidence, or an inability in a key area of a task.
- Rule: Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.
- Everything is learnable.
- Three steps to Mastery:
    1. First, read in your field for at least one hour every day
    2. Second, Take every course and seminar available on the key skill than can help you
    3. Third, listen to audio programs

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Chapter 12: Identify Your Key Constraints

- What's keeping you from starting your task
- If could choose any job or part of a job to do for the indefinite future, what work would you choose?
- What's holding you back? What sets the speed at which you achieve your goals? What determines how fast you move from where you are to where you want to go? What stops you or holds you back form eating the frogs that can really make a difference? Why aren't you at your goal already?
- In your own life, you must have the honesty to look deeply into yourself for the limiting factor or limiting skill that sets the speed at which you achieve your personal goals.

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Chapter 13:  Put the Pressure on Yourself

- To reach your full potential, you must form the habit of putting the pressure on yourself and not waiting for someone else to come along and do it for you
- Set deadlines and sub-deadlines on every task and activity
- Accept rest: "All I can do is all I can do"
- Select one activity or behavior that you can change immediately to improve your overall levels of health and energy

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Chapter 14: Motivate Yourself into Action

- To keep yourself motivated, you must resolve to become a complete optimist
- Refuse to complain about your problems. Keep them to yourself.

    As speaker-humorist Ed Foreman says, "You should never share your problems with others because 80 percent of people don't care about them anyway, and the other 20 percent are kind of glad that you've got them in the first place."

- Habits of an optimist
    - Optimists look for the good in every situation
    - Optimists always seek the valuable lesson in every setback or difficulty
    - Optimists always look for the solution to every problem
    - Optimists think and talk continually about their goals
- When you continually visualize your goals and ideals and talk to yourself in a positive way, you feel more focused and energized
- Control your thoughts. Remember, you become what you think about most of the time. Be sure that you are thinking and talking about the things you want rather than the things you don't want.

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Chapter 15: Technology Is a Terrible Master

- Create zones of silence during your day-to-day activities
- Resolve to unplug from technology for one full day each week

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Chapter 16: Technology Is a Wonderful Servant

- Schedule large blocks of time for task completion into your calendar, as if they were appointments.
- Above all else, avoid the phrase "I can't."
- Posting on social media about your progress is a great way to reward yourself for making headway on long-term projects.

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Chapter 17: Focus Your Attention

- Notifications instantly make you forget what you were doing

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Chapter 18: Slice and Dice the Task

- "Salami Slice"
    - With this method, you lay out the task in detail, writing down every step in order, and then resolve to do just one slice of the job.
- The sense of completion/closure motivates you to start the next task
- "Swiss cheese"
    - Pause something to just do a little work on something else
    - Writing 1 page per day still results in a complete book
- Don't delay!

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Chapter 19: Create Large Chunks of Time

- Use to morning to get 2-3 hours of work in
- Think of ways to save and schedule large chunks of time
- Work steadily without diversion or distraction

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<details>
<summary>Chapter 20: Develop A Sense of Urgency</summary>

- Get in "the zone"
- It's hard to start but easy to continue
- **"The faster you work and the more you get done, the higher will be your levels of self-esteem, self-respect, and personal pride."**
</details>
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<details>
<summary>Chapter 21: Single Handle Every Task</summary>

- Self-discipline: "The ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you like it or not."
- Set clear priorities, start immediately on your most important task, and the work without stopping until the job is 100 percent complete.
- Once you begin, refuse to stop until the job is finished.
</details>