What
you see is what you get
(Taken from the book ‘Eat the Frog’ by BIRAN TRACY)
The key to happiness, satisfaction
& great success and a wonderful feeling of personal power and effectiveness
is for you to develop the habit of eating your frog first thing every day when
you start work.
Like any other skill this skill is also
learnable that you require through repetition. And when you develop the habit
of starting on your most important task, before anything else, your success is
assured. The following are some of the assured ways to stop
procrastinating & get more things done faster. Review these rules and
principles regularly until they become firmly ingrained in your thinking and
actions and your future will be guaranteed.
1. Set
the table: Decide exactly what you want. Clarity
is extremely essential. Write out your goals and objectives before you begin.
2. Plan
every day in advance: Think on paper. Every minute you
spend in planning can save you five or ten minutes in execution.
3. 3.
Apply the 80 / 20 Rule to everything: Twenty percent of your activities
will account for 80 percent of your results. Always concentrate and put your on
that top 20 percent.
4. Consider
the consequence: Your most important tasks and
priorities are those that can have the most serious consequences, positive or
negative, on your life or work. Focus on these above all else.
5. Practice
the ABCDE Method continually: Before you
begin work on a list of tasks, take a few moments to organize them by value and
priority so you can be sure of working on your most important activities.
6. Focus
on key result areas: Identify and determine those results
that you absolutely, positively have to get to do your job well, and work on
them all day long.
7. Obey
the Law of Forced Efficiency: There is never
enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most
important things. What are they?
8. Prepare
thoroughly before you begin: Proper prior preparation prevents
poor performance.
9. Do
your homework: The more knowledgeable and skilled
you become at your key tasks, the faster you start them and the sooner you get
them done.
10. Leverage
your special talents: Determine exactly what it is that you
are good at doing, or could be very good at, and throw your whole heart into
doing those specific things very very well.
11. Identify
your key constraints: Determine the bottlenecks or choke
points, internally or externally, that set the speed at which you achieve your
most important goals, and focus on alleviating them.
12. Take
it one oil barrel at a time: You can accomplish the biggest and
most complicated job if you just complete it one step at a time.
13. Put
the pressure on yourself: Imagine that you have to leave town
for a month and work as if you to get all your major tasks completed before you
left.
14. Maximize
your personal powers: Identify your periods of highest
mental and physical energy each day and structure your most important and
demanding tasks around these times. Get lots of rest so you can perform at your
best.
15. Motivate
yourself into action: Be your own cheerleader. Look for the
good in every situation. Focus on the solution rather than the problem. Always
be optimistic and constructive.
16. Practice
creative procrastination: Since you can’t do everything, you
must learn to deliberately put off those tasks that are of low value so that
you have enough time to do the few things that really count.
17. Do
the most difficult task first. Begin each day
with your most difficult task, the one task that can make the greatest
contribution to yourself and your work, and resolve to stay at it until it is
complete.
18. Slice
and dice the task: Break large, complex tasks down into
bite sized pieces and then just do one small part of the task to get started.
19. Create
large chunks of time: Organize your days around large blocks
of time where you can concentrate for extended periods on your most important
tasks.
20. Develop
a sense of urgency: Make a habit of moving fast on your
key tasks. Become known as a person who does things quickly and well.
21. Single
handle every task: Set clear priorities, start immediately
on your most important task, and then work without stopping until the job is
100 percent complete. This is the real key to high performance and maximum
productivity.
Deciding what you want to do, planning
concretely your day well in advance, applying the 80 / 20 rule &
concentrating on your efforts on those 20 percent tasks which bear serious
consequences, planning to do them by value & priority, focusing on
the results, attending to tasks which are important & urgent, preparing
your homework thoroughly before embarking on the job by leveraging your special
talents, identifying & diluting the key constraints which often crop up by
taking one step at a time & by applying positive pressure on oneself &
maximizing one’s personal powers by motivating yourself into achievable action,
leaving out those tasks which are less important & consequence, engaging to
take up the difficult job first, slicing & dicing the task into sizeable
pieces by bringing in large blocks of time to perform, developing a sense of
urgency to finish the jobs once taken in your hand to a logical conclusion
shall bring laurels / success / pride.
Make a decision to practice these
principles every day until they become second nature to you. With these habits
of personal management as a permanent part of your personality, your future is
unlimited.
