HODGEPODGE BLOG

This little book, Eat That Frog!was more than twenty-fiveyears in the making. The simple lessons it contains were those lessons thatchanged my life when I was in my early twenties. Alas! I did not graduate from high school. I worked at laboring jobs – washing dishes, washing cars, and washing floors – before I went on to working in sawmills and factories, and construction labor. At the age of 23, I was uneducated, unskilled, and once more unemployed. Then, I got into straight commission selling,cold calling from door to door, dependent upon each sale to eat that day and pay for my small room in a boarding house.One day, I had a revelation that changed my life. I discovered the law of cause and effect. This law says that, for everything you do, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you want to get more out, you have to put more in. Most of all, this law says that: “If you do what other successful people do, you will soon get the same results that they do.”Wow! This meant that if I learned to do what the most successful salespeople in my field were doing, I could get the same results that they were. From that moment on, I became a lifelong student of success, and especially sales and business success.I soon learned the key factor that made all the other factors work. It was simply that, of all the things that you have to do each day, there is always one activity that is more important than the others. It is also the one activity that you are most likely to procrastinate on or to put off until later, until finally, the day is up and it is still undone.I spent 30 years reading books on time management, taking courses, and listening to audio programs. I found that the ability to select your most important priority, and to begin on that task first thing, before anything else, was the key to great success in life.

The book Eat That Frog! teaches this core principle. With this principle as a daily practice, you can double and triple your productivity and performance. You can increase your income and your results. You can have a wonderful life characterized by self-control, self-esteem, and high self-respect. All you have to do is start on your most important task first thing in the morning.

This book has now become the bestselling book on time management in the world, in 38 languages, selling more than 3 million copies and going into fifteen and twenty printings in some languages. It is all because it contains one “simple truth” about life management and peak performance.

Today, I’d like to share a chapter from Eat That Frog! called Plan Every Day in Advance

An excerpt from Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy   You have heard the old question, “How do you eat an elephant? The answer is, “One bite at a time!”How do you eat your biggest, ugliest frog? The same way; you break it down into specific step-by-step activities and then you start on the first one.Your mind, your ability to think, plan and decide, is your most powerful tool for overcoming procrastination and increasing your productivity. Your ability to set goals, make plans, and take action on them determines the course of your life.Conversely, as Alec Mackenzie wrote, “Taking action without thinking things through is a prime source of problems.”Increase your Return on EnergyOne of your top goals at work should be for you to get the highest possible return on your investment of mental, emotional, and physical energy. The good news is that every minute spent in planning saves as many as ten minutes in execution. It takes only 10 to 12 minutes for you to plan out your day, but this small investment of time will save you up to two hours (100 to 120 minutes) in wasted time and diffused effort throughout the day.You may have heard of the Six-P Formula. It says, “Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.”When you consider how helpful planning can be in increasing your productivity and performance, it is amazing how few people practice it every single day. And planning is really quite simple to do. All you need is a piece of paper and a pen. The most sophisticated Palm Pilot, computer program, or time planner is based on the same principle. It is based on your sitting down and making a list of everything you have to do before you begin.Two Extra Hours Per DayAlways work from a list. When something new comes up,add it to the list before you do it.You can increase your productivity and output by 25 percent or more – about two hours a day – from the first day that you begin working consistently from a list.Make your list the night before for the workday ahead. Move everything that you have not yet accomplished onto your list for the coming day, and then add everything that you have to do the next day. When you make your list the night before, your subconscious mind will work on your list all night long while you sleep. Often you will wake up with great ideas and insights that you can use to get your job done faster and better than you had initially thought.The more time you take to make written lists of everything you have to do, in advance, the more effective and efficient you will be.

The key to all of this is for you to determine the most valuable and important thing you could possibly do at every single moment and then Eat That Frog! To look inside this inspirational book or to watch the movie, just click here.  Make sure to share this emailwith your friends, family and co-workers. They’ll thank you for it!   To Life