Me and Ali are also contributors to GTD Times, the official GTD Blog of David Allen Company. At GTD Times, we have posted a review of Eat that Frog, by Brian Tracy. A book that has extended Mark Twain’s analogy of doing the toughest task of the day to eating an Ugly & Repulsive Frog. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and gained many insights that I was able to immediately put into practice. This book has been reprinted for India and is available at a reduced price of Rs.150/- at most bookstores.
Below are some of the snippets from the book that would give you more of a gist and also get you moving on your tasks. You can read more excerpts at the end of this GTDTimes blog post by clicking here.
Taking the Frog analogy forward:
If you have to eat a live frog at all, it doesn’t pay to sit and look at it for very long.When you’ve got two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.
You cannot eat every tadpole and frog in the pond, but you can eat the biggest and ugliest one.
How do you eat your biggest, ugliest frog? The answer is: “One bite at a time.” i.e. you break it down into specific step by step activities and then start on the first one.
You should never be distracted by a tadpole when a big frog is siting there waiting to be eaten.
On the Pareto principle or 80/20 rule:
There is never enough time to do all the tasks, but there’s always time to do the most Important task.The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80 percent while you still have tasks in the top 20 percent left to be done.
A Question to ask yourself for maximum productivity: “What can I, and only I, do that if done well will make a real difference?” ~ Peter Drucker.
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