Eat That Frog (Get More Of The Important Things Done) - Book Club Series
Welcome back to the book club series, where I go over some of my favourite books in personal development, business management and finance. I give you some of my key take aways that I got from reading it, and I give my recommendation on who I think would benefit from reading it.
This weeks book is Eat That Frog written by Brian Tracy. One of the Grand-Dads of modern day personal development. This book is one that I go back to all the time, I have read it at least 5 times over, constantly reference back to it and use many of the tools provided inside in my day to day life.
The main take away from this book is in the title. Eat That Frog. The Frog is in reference to your tasks and your projects. The things that you are trying to achieve and attain in your life. The basic premise here is that when you sit down to start working each day, you should start with your biggest, ugliest frog first.
By this he means, you should focus your energy on the task that is going to move the needle the most. What is going to have the greatest impact on your life and what you are trying to achieve. Basically what its about is gaining clarity on where you should be spending your time and energy each day.
We each have a limited amount of time and energy each day. The idea here is that you put that energy into the major tasks, rather than procrastinating or distracting yourself with things that won’t serve you.
The book discusses ideas of how to avoid distractions, make plans and to-do lists, and organisational skills for your life and projects. Another powerful take away from this book is his views on technology.
Tracy discusses the idea of technology being a wonderful slave, but a terrible master. Addressing the fact that we are consistently spending more time on our devices and not always for the right reasons. We all know that we can benefit from the use of technology. Whether it be for managing your to-do list and calendar, using maps for directions or of course as a communication tool. The issue is, we are spending far more time mindlessly scrolling through social media, the internet and consuming media that does little to serve us in the pursuit of our larger life goals. Technology is a double edge sword, at the same time as being a powerful tool for productivity, they can also be our greatest source of distraction and procrastination.
In terms of who I’d recommend read this book, this is on my all time recommended list. I would go as far as saying this should become a compulsory read for students at schools around the world. It's a short book, written in a way that is easy to understand and absorb. Of course the target audience for this is those trying to get more of what really matters to them done in any given day. If you were to only read one book on productivity, this would be the one I’d recommend to you.
