“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.”
Don’t you sometimes feel absolutely overwelmed by the things to be done? You finish some of them only to realize that tomorrow’s agenda looks even longer. Brian Tracy’s «Eat that frog» method is focused on battling exactly this problem. He explains why it makes sense to address only the most important goals and what can we do to increase our overall productivity.
Nowadays, everyone has endless to-do lists. What defines successful people is the ability to identify the most significant tasks and to focus on completing them as early as possible. What makes you truly productive is not the amount of issues you can tackle, but the results you achieve.
7 productivity tips from Brian Tracy I appreciated the most:
1. Define your goals
It is critical to know what are your aims. The clearer you see your goals – the better chances you have to reach them. Before starting to work on any project write down all the goals and tasks that you will need to execute.
2. Plan your day ahead
Reserve 10 minutes of your morning on organising and planning your activities. The better you plan your day, the easier it is to fight the procrastination and to move towards your objectives.
3. Use the 80/20 Pareto principle
80% of the results come from 20% of all your activities. Make sure to focus your attention on the top 20% of the tasks that will lead you to the success. Don’t waste time on trifles.
4. Set task priorities
When your task list is ready, devote couple of minutes to setting ABCDE priorities for every task in your list. The most important task gets the A priority and so on. Always work on the things with the higher priorities first.
5. Remember the law of forced efficiency
Keep in mind the Parkinson’s Law that says: you will never have enough time for everything, but you will always have plenty of time to do the most important things. Decide what tasks will bring you maximum rewards and try to complete them before they become urgent.
6. Divide and Conquer
If your “frog” is too big, the best way to eat it is by cutting it into pieces. Separate your project into smaller sub-tasks and you’ll immediately feel much more comfortable. To move forward it is extremely important to see that some tasks are already finished. When you realize that you conquered some portions of the big task, you get additional energy boost to move forward.
7. Force yourself to act immediately
Imagine that tomorrow you are going away for a month and you must finish the most meaningful assignments. If you use this psychological trick you have all the chances to triple your productivity and improve self-discipline.
That’s it for today Rich Girls. There are so many different ways you can approach your task list that the learning about them itself can become a way of procrastination. Probably the ultimate productivity advice is that every organisational method is good enough as long as you follow-through, not only read about it.
Truly yours,
Alona
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