How did I hear about it?

A few years ago I decided that to be more productive I needed to procrastinate less. What better way to do so than to read a book about how to not procrastinate (rather than go do the things I was avoiding). From my research the consensus seemed to be that the 3 best choices were:
– Never check e-mail in the morning
– Getting things done
– Eat that frog!

I figured not checking emails in the morning was something I could easily get on board with so I bought that book, read the first chapter and got distracted by all the emails I had that I needed to check in the morning. I blamed the book for my lack of increased productivity and so moved on to Getting things done, which I never did finish. As for Eat that frog, I simply forgot about it. Recently however, we started a library at work and while perusing the book shelves I came across Eat that frog and figured that I would give it a go.

Now I’ve completed it and …?

As far as time management goes, Eat that frog has some great advice. In addition, it has great structure and flow making it a very easy read. The focus is on identifying and tackling your most important task (your biggest, ugliest, wartiest frog) first and foremost. Everything else is secondary. Each chapter highlights an approach for doing this and ends with an action plan for applying the approach. And right there lies the problem with this book (and most other time management books to be fair).

Telling an accomplished procrastinator to go do that task right now is like telling Kim Jong-un to just be nice. Sure it’s obvious but it ain’t gonna happen. Reading a book is easy, it’s a one-off task. Making fundamental life changes, undoing years of degenerative behaviour and ultimately breaking bad habits? Not so easy. If it were, Brian Tracy wouldn’t be a best selling author, maybe he’d be a window cleaner or a fishmonger or something else, just not best selling author on productivity.

That said, even if I personally never get around to doing any of the actions, I still walked away with a profound message: prioritise aggressively, focus relentlessly. There are a few actions that you perform that give you significant returns. Most of the others only offer fleeting reward. Focus on the former, only ever do the latter if there’s nothing better to do. Also, find your most productive time and use it for the most important tasks. I’ve discovered that mine is 6:30 a.m.

What are some sample quotes?

The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place

Motivation requires motive

Do first things first and second things not at all

The starting point of high performance is for you to identify the key result areas of your work

Your ultimate goal is to live a long, happy and health life

Be prepared to fail over and over before you get it right

Read in your field for at least one hour every day

Was it worth the money?

The Kindle edition of Eat that frog cost me £0.99 on Amazon which, at the time of writing, is actually 15p less than the palm-shaped bottle opener key ring. I already own a key ring and can open a bottle using every day items including a pen, I always have a pen. I managed to read this to completion (and learn something new) in the time that Amazon would have taken to deliver the useless bottle opening key ring.

Verdict: Buy.