Procrastination is the success killer, a powerful manifestations of the resistance. Eat that frog gives 21 antidotes to procrastination. These are my re-framing of the concepts into my favorite mental models. Chapter titles come from the book.
- A word from our sponsor, the resistance
- The immutable laws of hard things
- Lies of procrastination
- Start with Why
- Goal Planning
- Execution
- Work the elephant: Daily Motivation
- Shape the path: Make it easy on yourself
- Getting things done
- ABCDE prioritization and Important Not Urgent
A word from our sponsor, the resistance
The immutable laws of hard things
Lies of procrastination
- Doing the unimportant is glorious Finally I have time to watch TV, so glad, I’ve been so deprived.
- Doing the important is a burden Man taking the 1 minute to get up and taking out the garbage, what a burden.
- The important isn’t valuable Is taking out the garbage, a sign of huge respect or my wife really unimportant?
Start with Why
1. Begin with the end in mind: Decide exactly what you want and why. Clarity is essential. Write out your goals and objectives before you begin.
4. Consider the impact: Your most important tasks and priorities are those that can have the most impact, positive or negative, on your life or work. Focus on these above all else.
7. Focus on key result areas: Identify those results that you absolutely, positively have to get to do your job well, and work on them all day long.
8. Apply the Law of Three: Identify the three things you do in your work that account for 90 percent of your contribution, and focus on getting them done before anything else. You will then have more time for your family and personal life.
Goal Planning
3. Apply the 80/20 Rule to everything: Twenty percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results. Always concentrate your efforts on that top 20 percent.
12. Identify your key constraints: Determine the bottlenecks or choke points, internal or external, that set the speed at which you achieve your most important goals, and focus on alleviating them.
6. Use the urgent and import matrix, and ABCDE framework 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. Do items in alphabetical order.
Execution
2. Plan every day in advance: Think on paper. Every minute you spend in planning can save you five or ten minutes in execution.
9. Prepare thoroughly before you begin: Have everything you need at hand before you start. Assemble all the papers, information, tools, work materials, and numbers you might require so that you can get started and keep going.
10. Take it one oil barrel at a time: You don’t always know what’s required to get to the finish line, but you can always figure out the next milestone. Get to the next milestone, and you can find the next milestone after that.
18. Slice and dice the task: Break large, complex tasks down into bite-sized pieces, and then do just one small part of the task to get started. If the task is still too daunting, set a time goal and stay on task till you finish that time slice.
Work the elephant: Daily Motivation
13. Put the pressure on yourself: Imagine that you have to leave town for a month, and work as if you had to get your major task completed before you left.
14. 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.
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.
5. 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.
Shape the path: Make it easy on yourself
11. Sharpen the saw The more knowledgeable and skilled you become at your key tasks, the faster you start them and the sooner you get them done. Determine exactly what you are very good at doing, or could be very good at, and throw your whole heart into doing those specific things very, very well.
19. Create power hours: Organize your days around large blocks of time so you can concentrate for extended periods on your most important tasks.
17. Focus your attention: Stop the interruptions and distractions that interfere with completing your most important tasks. This is essential dangerous if you allow this to break up the large time chunks by just checking your phone/news/messages/TikTok, or yak shaving.
21. Single handle every task: Set clear priorities, start your most important tasks now, and then work without stopping until the job is 100 percent complete. This is the key to peak personal productivity.
16. Technology is a wonderful servant: Use your technological tools to confront yourself with what is most important and protect yourself from what is least important.
15. Technology is a terrible master: Take back your time from enslaving technological addictions. Learn to often turn devices off and leave them off.
Getting things done
ABCDE prioritization and Important Not Urgent
I need to process how to merge the important and not urgent matrix with the ABCDE prioritization matrix.
“A” items are important and urgent I/U, something that you must do. This is a task that will have serious consequences (positive or negative), finishing a calibration packets for upcoming calibration or dealing with a root canal. If you have more than one A task, prioritize, and execute in order “A-1,” “A-2,” “A-3,” Your A-1 task is your biggest, ugliest frog of all. Start there.
TBD: Where to work in Important and Not-Urgent TBD: Where to work in Positive Habits and Practices
“B” items are urgent and not important U/NI - something you should do. But it has only mild consequences. These are the tadpoles of your work life. This means that someone may be unhappy or inconvenienced if you don’t do one of these tasks, but it is nowhere as important as an A task. Returning an unimportant telephone message or reviewing your e-mail would be a B task.
A “C” task is nice to do but there are no consequences if you don’t use it. C tasks include phoning a friend, having coffee or lunch with a coworker, and completing some personal business during work hours. These sorts of activities have no effect at all on your work life.
A “D” task is defined as something you can delegate to someone else. The rule is that you should delegate everything that someone else can do so you can free up more time for the A tasks that only you can do.