Achievement is the key to consistently achieving high levels of performance and productivity in life and work. You know you must work on your most important task, but first, you must learn to recognize and focus on it; it is a skill you must develop. In this article, we will share the critical success factors you need to identify and finish your most important tasks daily.
Eat the frog
The founder of Asian Efficiency, Thanh Pham, is often asked what the best productivity advice is; that is, what is the most important thing you can do to increase your productivity? He replies:
"Eat a frog." He based his response on an easy but powerful principle attributed to author and speaker Brian Tracy, founder of Brian Tracy International.
Brian wrote a book about it that we highly recommend: Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.
There is a quote from the author Mark Twain, who inspired the name: “Eat a live frog in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”
So, what does "eat the frog" mean?
The frog is the most essential item on your to-do list; it is the only thing you can do now, so it is the best investment for your current time. It is an importance, a priority, and a high value. So, why does Brian Tracy call it: "The Frog"? The answer is: It's easier said than done.
Managing personal time and productivity requires you to do more than make a list of everything you need to do.
There are two essential things to know about eating a frog:
- You may not know how to identify a frog. Frogs are adept at hiding in a disorganized to-do list. Without clear goals and well-defined priorities, "the frog" is another task waiting for your to-do list.
- Overcome distractions and procrastination to get more done. It's easy to stay busy doing good things that consume your time, attention, and energy rather than dealing with that frog. It can be challenging to deal with, but if you devour it, you can positively impact your life and work. Fortunately, you can take some practical steps successfully by taking immediate and necessary action consistently.
How do you find your frog?
Before you devour that frog, find it first by:
1. Aiming for the right target
Matthew Emmons is an Olympic gold medalist who was considered the best in the world when he competed at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. In fact, he won the gold medal in his first event, and Emmons was expected to win a second gold medal, but a tragic mistake in the last round of the competition made him lose, as he aimed at the wrong goal.
As for your to-do list, it's full of goals, and there are more things than you can do. To be successful, aim for the right goal - you have to find your “most important and difficult task” -the problem for most people is a lack of clarity.
Author Brian Tracy says: “Clarity is perhaps the most important concept in personal productivity.”
To find your “most important and difficult task,” you need a clear to-do list organized according to your highest priorities based on your most important goals:
2. Clearly define objectives
If you want to devour a frog, the first step is to know exactly what you want to achieve. Most people have a lot of goals, and not everything can be a good goal, as author Jim Collins said in his book that may change your life: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't: “A good level is an enemy of a great level.”
He continues: “Few people have a great life, and the reason for that is because it's so easy just to accept the good life.”
When you think about all the possibilities, what are the most impossible goals you can achieve in your life or work? Think of it like digging for gold; you are looking for goals representing the best options for your life and work.
Evaluate your goals
When you're looking for ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time, it starts with clear goals. Review your current goals, write them down - if you haven't already - make a list, and then ask yourself, “Which 5 goals are most important?” Use these goals as a basis for setting your priorities.
3. Prioritize clearly
Put something specific you do first each day, and Tracy recommends following the Necessary Effectiveness Act, which states:
“There is not enough time to do everything, but always enough time to do the most important thing.”
Sometimes, we sacrifice important things for urgent matters, and the principle of eating a frog depends on doing the most important task first, so ask yourself:
“After my morning routine, what was the first thing I did today?” Was it the most important thing you could do? Every activity in your day is a choice you make about your time, focus, and energy.
These are limited resources. The more you use them, the less you have. It is essential to align your activities with your goals and priorities, as it is the only way to take immediate and necessary action. Setting priorities based on your most important goals is like creating a bridge between your to-do list and your goals. This bridge helps determine the path you need to follow to reach your goals.
For example, if your goal is to lose weight, you may have priority to exercise. If your goal is to own a house, you may have priority to save money. If you aim to be an entrepreneur, you may prioritize communication with other employers. When you have clarity on your most important goals and your highest priorities, you will be in a position to make the right decisions about organizing your daily to-do list.
Benefits of Prioritization
- Make better decisions about time management.
- Avoid wasting time on low-value tasks.
- Help you overcome procrastination to get more done in less time.
- Make you feel more positive and confident in your work.
- Acquire the habit of starting and finishing important tasks.
How to take advantage of priorities to get things done
- Divide time into large parts: You need long periods to do your most important work, and there is another book to do important work that may change your life, by Cal Newport, which is Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.
- Handle only one task: When you deal with each task alone, you increase your personal productivity because you work on the task only once, and once you identify the most critical and difficult task, you start working on it and continue until you finish. If the task is too big to complete in a single session of focused work, consider the option to “break the task down” into smaller, easy-to-manage steps.
- Focus attention: Eliminate as many distractions as possible and create an environment that allows you to work without interruption, turn off notifications, close your email or listen to music, and do things that increase your ability to focus on one thing: “devouring the frog.”
- Apply the 80/20 rule: The Pareto principle - commonly known as the 80/20 rule - states that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your results. To make the most of your time, focus on activities within the 20% range.
4. Clearly define tasks
To be productive, translate your goals into your most important tasks.
Ask yourself clarifying questions
Tracy recommends asking yourself three clarifying questions to determine which tasks you should be working on each day:
- What are your most important activities?
- What can I do, and if I do it well, will it make a real difference?
- What is the most valuable use of my time now?
Powerful practical advice by Brian Tracy for time management
The most important work you have to do will require large chunks of time to complete, and you need to be strategic about organizing your day to get the most focus and effort on your most essential tasks, starting with identifying your most important "frog."
- Scheduling time slots: You need time to eat the frog. Use your calendar to limit your priorities by scheduling time slots to do your most important work.
- Use a time chart: Use an "analog" or "digital" calendar that shows you a quick look at your day, think about your time in the same way you think about the budget, choose carefully how you spend your time, and at the end of your day, ask yourself if you spent it doing your most important work.
- Invest every minute of your time: Know the times during the day when you can benefit from personal productivity, which may otherwise be lost. You can take action even while waiting.
How do you devour that frog?
Once you have a specific system for identifying your frog, you need a plan for devouring it.
This is what we recommend:
1. Plan each day in advance
Tracy supports planning each day in advance, and there are some ways to keep your subconscious mind working on your daily list while you sleep. When you wake up the next day, you can start the day with a state of alert. At a minimum, your preparation should include the following:
- Determine the task of eating the frog for the next morning.
- Write the task down in a note.
- Set aside time for it on your calendar, and you can even name the appointment “Eat Frog.”
2. Focus on your most important tasks
“Life is about studying concentration. Where your concentration goes, your life follows,” said the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti.
Do you feel distracted? It's impossible to give your best if you feel like everyone is always asking for your time and attention. Today, I work from home, but in the past, I had to close the door of my office and put a sign on the door that said nicely: “Please don't bother because I am working on my most important task for today.” However, it is difficult to “close your door” in today's digital world, yet it is not impossible, as you can create an environment for yourself to focus on the work you need to do.
- If you're using a shared calendar, let others know you're busy or unavailable.
- Use your phone's Do Not Disturb setting to reduce the number of distractions, notifications, and interruptions.
- Use a technique, such as Pomodoro Technique, to regulate focused working time.
- Apply the 20/80 rule to your daily work.
3. Think of the consequences
The number one enemy of eating a frog is procrastination. According to Merriam-Webster, procrastination postpones something that needs to be done. When you encounter a frog, procrastination is the voice that tempts you to give your time, attention, and energy to something other than your most important task of the day.
Considering the consequences means thinking about them. Based on your decisions about how you spend your time, what is the positive impact on your life? What are the possible negative consequences? If you have the end in mind, you can make the most of your time eating that frog.
Two ways to stop procrastinating and get more done
Email and Social Media:
How much time does your digital device consume? Once you start browsing one of your social media Apps, such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Tick Tock, it will be difficult to overcome your desire for more browsing on these sites, as one thing leads to the next thing without end.
If you need more accountability to avoid this procrastination trap, an app like Freedom is a great solution. If you have more self-discipline, you can try something as easy as turning off your phone at work. Email is more difficult because you can usually justify email as a work activity. The difference is that answering emails doesn't help you eat the frog.
In his book, Tracy quotes a Fortune journalist, saying, “I realized that just because someone emailed me, it doesn't mean they own a part of my life.” One strategy that can help you avoid procrastination is setting a time limit for responding to email; the time limit on email will make you more productive in handling it.
Little things:
Author Brian Tracy advises against the temptation to do small things before they begin, as these small things can take longer than you think.
It takes up your time, energy, and attention that you should all use to eat that frog. Brian Tracy's approach is a practice of creative procrastination, the deliberate practice of postponing low-value tasks. Tracy says :
“Low-value tasks are very repetitive, and as long as they're stalling anyway, today I decide to postpone these low-value activities.”
Successful people carefully choose what to postpone, and instead of being distracted, they focus on the main tasks directly related to their goals and priorities. Nothing will distract them from eating a frog.
4. Get started immediately
Always start with high-priority tasks, accomplish your tasks, and devour the first bite of that frog, which leads to the most significant positive impact on your productivity. Brian Tracy is like a trip based on the principle of: "One barrel of oil at a time." Tracy recounts his experience crossing the Sahara desert. It was a dangerous journey in which you see only the sun and sand. More than 1,300 people died when Tracy was trying to cross. They crossed the arid terrain by following a series of 55 barrels of oil that the French had set every five kilometers to determine the path.
“All we had to do was head for the next barrel of oil; as a result, we were able to cross the world's largest desert by crossing one barrel of oil at a time,” Tracy said. You could use the same principle to devour that frog daily “One bite at a time until you devour it all.”
Eating a frog is about taking action
You have to get the job done, so ask yourself:
“What next step can you take toward accomplishing your most important task?” If a task seems too big, break it down into smaller steps.
As a writer, my first steps may include unlocking my computer, opening Ulysses, my favorite writing app, creating a document, putting the title and date at the top of the page, and writing the first 200 words. This is still far from finishing an article, but it is enough to create the desire to work. The first step leads to the next. Every small work you do to accomplish your tasks creates the momentum you need for the next step.
Two steps are necessary to accomplish your tasks
1. Put pressure on yourself to complete your tasks:
If you can be as productive all the time as you were in the last few days before going on vacation, imagine how much work you can get done. When that happens, it feels like a superpower. It's just the quality of your focus; you have a sense of urgency and the self-discipline to stop procrastinating and finish your work.
2. Motivate yourself to work:
In an ideal world, if your co-worker is challenged, you can say something to encourage or help them; a positive perspective and an encouraging word make a real difference, but sometimes you have to be that person for yourself. Trust your ability to devour that frog.
Make everything work for you
Here's how to make everything work for you starting today:
Write one task on a piece of paper or in your favorite task manager; this task will be the frog you will eat tomorrow. Do not worry if you have not mastered all your goals and priorities yet, as you will get better every day. Start now, set part of the morning to eat the frog, say: "No to procrastination and distraction," and continue to work until you devour the frog.
5 Steps to Eating a Frog
- Choose one task to be the frog you will eat tomorrow.
- Assign the task.
- Make time to devour the frog.
- Resist all distractions that waste your time.
- Devour the first frog.
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