24.04.2025
EAT THE FROG - A KEY PRINCIPLE FOR EFFICIENCY AND SUCCESS AT WORK
An old wisdom advises that if you eat a frog in the morning, the rest of the time you will console yourself with the thought that nothing worse will happen to you that day. In other words, finish the most unpleasant office task immediately. If you put it off, the thought of it will stress you out. So take action - just eat the frog, recommends business consultant Brian Tracy.
Getting the unpleasant task done is one of the elements of successful time management. Many people try to push it as far back as possible because they don't like it. But in this way they harm themselves doubly - both they risk not fulfilling it qualitatively and on time, and the thought that something nasty is ahead of them hinders their effectiveness in what they have undertaken.
Your time management is correct if you do not divide your business commitments according to the (dis)pleasure they will bring you, but according to their urgency and importance. This is the only way to not work overtime, achieve success and advance in your career.
Experts say to plan your tasks, and always in writing.
The list prevents you from straying, or at least makes you conscientious by doing so. "If we rely only on our memory, we will never know what we spend our time on," says Peter Drucker, one of the famous theorists of time management.
The list on the first day will increase your productivity by 25%, experts assure.
Every night write down the tasks for the next day and you will know what to start with in the morning. Place each new task on the list according to its importance and urgency. And cross off the completed. It brings satisfaction and energizes.
Successful planning has an algorithm: from big to small, from long term to short term. For each task, note the deadline for its completion.
Break complex ones into subtasks. You will find the so-called decision tree method. The tree is the key task, and the subtasks that lead to its completion are the branches. Continue branching until the way to accomplish your key task is completely clear.
Before you do anything, remember the 10/90 rule. It states that 10% of the time spent planning the task will save 90% of the time to solve it.
The most important thing is to determine the priorities, experts point out. When you are aware of the things that are important to you, you will automatically recognize those that are not particularly important.
In particular, the ABCDE method can work for the arrangement of tasks. It means giving each task on the list the appropriate priority.
The task marked A is the most important and has the most serious consequences in case of failure.
It is critical to success that you don't tackle B until you've done A, and C until you've done B, and so on. With the letter E mark the most insignificant tasks that do not affect anything and can be dropped from the list.
To allocate the priorities in each group of tasks, also use numbers to indicate the sequence of execution. Thus, the most important task will be A1.
Time is never enough for everything, but there is always enough for the most important, says the law of forced efficiency in time management. So mobilize and commit to doing what will bring the best result and from which you will benefit the most.
Do only one thing at a time. If you drop it and then start coming back to it again and again, you will reduce your effectiveness by 5 times.
