Brian Tracey has a great book, Eat That Frog. This book is awesome for illustrating the basic concept of prioritizing. In order for you to get your plate empty you will have to stop and assess what is the most important thing for you to get done. Our to-do lists do not usually include unimportant things to do. Everything is important. (The urgent things don’t even make the list, they just take up time so we don’t even get to the lists). Then, when we just start chipping away at to-do lists, we often eat desert first. We do what feels good but is not really most essential to our performance.
Tracy’s concept is to get the most important thing you need to get done first; this is your frog. Do it before you do anything else (including urgent things – unless it is a real emergency). Your frog is the #1 thing on your to do list. As you get that done, you will have more energy for everything else on your list and will be able to accomplish more in your day in addition to having greater results as you take care of the most important things first.
Action:
- Make a “to do” list nightly.
- Prioritize the list.
- The #1 item is your frog. Complete it before you do any other projects.
- Make it your goal to complete the next 5 top priorities before moving on to anything else on the list.
