Do you ever struggle to accomplish important tasks? Do you find yourself working on half a dozen different tasks because you dread doing one thing? If this describes you, then eat the frog may be the productivity technique you need.
Once you learn how to accomplish your major objectives, the rest of the day will unfold smoothly. You’ll be able to accomplish more things each day, and you’ll be able to prioritize which tasks you focus on the most. Thanks to a few simple changes, you can improve your organization’s productivity and profitability.
What Does “Eat the Frog” Mean?
Eat the frog is when you prioritize your tasks to get more done each day. The Eat That Frog book by author Brian Tracy encourages you to do your biggest, most important task first before working on your other goals.
Years ago, Mark Twain said, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”
Other than clearly being right about eating a literal frog, Twain’s quote ended up inspiring a productivity book. In the book, the eat the frog meaning involves focusing on your most important task first. Once you’ve completed your most crucial task for the day, you can move on to doing the remainder of your goals.
You should start by identifying your frog for the day. Once you’ve figured out your most important task, you eat the frog first. Then, you do the same process each morning.
Benefits of the Eat the Frog Method
There are a few ways the eat the frog method can help you achieve your personal and organizational goals.
Stop Procrastinating
People tend to procrastinate when it comes to big tasks. Instead of spending all of your time dreading a major task, you can get it done right away. Then, the rest of your to-do list will go faster because you aren’t dreading a big project.
Boost Your Deep Work Capabilities
By using eat the frog and one of the best time trackers, you can prioritize important tasks. When you procrastinate, you end up getting distracted by busy work. Your ability to focus and do deep work will improve significantly when you start scheduling your important tasks for first thing in the day.
Improve Your Workday
Not only will this method help you accomplish more each day, but it will also help you enjoy your workday more. Instead of dreading a major project and putting it off until last, you can get it done right away. Afterward, you can enjoy a sense of relief as you work on the rest of your projects.
How to Integrate Eating the Frog Into Your Business
The Eat That Frog book can help with more than your personal productivity. Eating the frog can improve your company’s productivity and profitability as well. To get started with this technique, try using the following tips with your employees and colleagues.
1. Get a Time Tracker
One of the biggest reasons to eat the frog first is because it allows you to prioritize which tasks you get done first. To help with prioritizing tasks, you can also get your team members to use a time tracker.
Time trackers help your team members to stay accountable for how they are using their time. They can also show you how to spot busy work, so you can modify how your team approaches each day.
2. Break To-Do List Tasks Into Smaller Tasks
When a task is quite large or complex, it can seem insurmountable for your team members. To help your employees accomplish their goals each day, you should break down major goals into smaller tasks. Divide each day’s work into different tasks, so team members have something manageable to work on.
3. Be Smart About Your Best Hours
Although everyone is different, there are a few common times of day when people do their best work. For your typical worker, morning time is when they’ll get their best work done. During the after-lunch slump, employees can do emails, meetings, and less important tasks.
Prioritizing certain times is one of the top ways to get your team’s best efforts. Ideally, you should schedule important tasks during their best hours, so they will be more productive and efficient. The last thing you want workers to do is to check their email during their most productive time of the day.
4. Prepare for the Next Day
Another way your team can set themselves up for success is by preparing for the next day’s frog. For example, you should get out the outline and research you need tonight for the presentation you want to work on tomorrow. By doing this, you can make starting the next day’s frog as easy as possible.
While preparing for the next day’s frog is an excellent technique, you don’t want your team planning too far ahead. It’s hard to know exactly where they will be in a project in a week or a month, so advance planning can set them up to fail. Instead, be flexible about the future, so your team can adjust as the project develops over time.
5. Get Rid of Busy Work
You might not be able to get rid of all of your busy work, but you should be able to reduce some of the unnecessary tasks your employees do each day. With time tracking software, you can automate the way your team shares and creates schedules. Instead of manually figuring out how to distribute the workload evenly or track overtime, the software program will handle these tasks automatically.
Some busy work may be unavoidable, like checking emails or going to meetings. When this is the case, you can use your time tracker to schedule busy work for an employee’s least productive hours.
Make Your Team More Productive
Whether you run a small business or manage a team at a multinational conglomerate, eat the frog can help you boost your team’s productivity. Other tools, like time tracking software, can help you use this productivity technique and maximize your company’s profitability.
To learn more, you can sign up for Time Tracker by eBillity for a free 14-day trial today!