Eat That Frog! Part 4 of 9: The Pareto Principle
October 20, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
All of you have heard of the 80/20 rule. Who came up with it? The answer is the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1895 who saw that society was controlled by what he called “the vital few”, i.e., the top 20%. Similarly, many things in life if we focus on the top 20%, we can accomplish much more than if we stayed in the 80% of the non-important stuff. As Tracy says, “20% of your activities will accomplish 80% of your results, 20% of your customers will account for 80% of your business, 20% of your products or services will account for 80% of your profits, 20% of your tasks will account for 80% of the value of what you do, and so on.”
The idea is that on our top ten list of things, the #1 “frog” can often be substantially more important to accomplish than the other 9 all added together. But what do we work on instead? The other 9 first. We want to do the small things first to get them out of the way so that we can then concentrate on the big thing. However, we oftentimes have no energy or time to focus on what really matters, which is our top 20%. We need to focus entirely on that important core by first defining what that core is. If we think our 20% is actually our 80% or vice versa then we are in trouble. Remember as Stephen Covey says before we climb the ladder of success we better know if the ladder is leaning against the right building.
We need to focus our energies to accomplish the top 20% so that we can accomplish so much more. It also fills us with a sense of completion and joy when we do. When we accomplish small tasks we do not feel the same sense of satisfaction. We therefore do not get the endorphin rush that reinforces the good habit of eating that frog. What is your frog today and are you going to eat it first?
Eat That Frog! Part 3 of 9: How to Eat an Elephant
October 16, 2009 by dr. lam · 5 Comments
There is an age old question: “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer is easy: ”One bite at a time.” I like this expression. It reminds me of Lao Tzu’s saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Remember the series that we did (for my more established and faithful blog followers) on the power of intention. When we put our intention on what we want, we can accomplish much more. We must visualize what we want and visualize it as already present. As mentioned in our first blog of this series, we must see ourselves as productive creatures or we will falter.
However, this imagination of what we want is simply insufficient. There must be planning on how to eat the elephant (or frog). Why? Because it allows us to work with maximal efficiency. Without efficiency, our work life is unproductive and it can spill into our private lives. The saying “Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance” should be absorbed. The 10/90 rule says that 10% of planning will allow us to be more efficient with the remaining 90% of time. Even 10 minutes of accurate planning can shave off a couple of hours in the day to free us up to do other things that can be more productive.
When should we plan? Tracy argues that planning would be better accomplished the night before. As we settle on what we need to move from the day’s tasks that were not completed, everything is fresh in our minds and we also then allow our subconscious mind during sleep to help guide us to what would be the best course of action the following morning. When we awake, we can be instilled with a lot more energy, drive, and fresh ideas. Of course, that morning, spending a few minutes to plan for the day will then allow us to take a chunk off the bigger elephant more effectively.
Eat That Frog! Part 2 of 9: Think on Paper
October 15, 2009 by dr. lam · 6 Comments
![write-your-goals[2]](http://lfp-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/write-your-goals2-300x214.jpg "write-your-goals[2]")
Too often we have fanciful ideas of what we would like to do floating in our minds that in turn quickly evaporate. We allow multiple idea threads to enter our minds then easily allow them to slip from our grasp. Without writing them down, we cannot plan our moves nor can we firmly visualize what we want to accomplish and on what timetable. Tracy’s admonition to “Think on Paper” is great one that we all should incorporate.
Here are seven steps that Tracy provides to help you eat that frog:
Step 1- Decide what you want. Sit down and simply start writing ideas of what you want in a free flowing manner. You can and should then edit those ideas only after you have brainstormed on what you want. You have to prioritize what is important to you. We may in fact choose the wrong thing to do that will only compel us to waste precious time. Steven Covey says, “Before you begin scrambling up the ladder of success, make sure that it is leaning against the right building.”
Step 2- Write it down. As I said, “Think on Paper”. If it is not written, it is not going to be done; or it is going to be forgotten. Unwritten goals are vague, confusing, and may never be accomplished.
Step 3- Set a deadline on your goal then set subdeadlines as needed. Without a deadline, goals have no urgency. He encourages us all to feel a sense of pressure to do the task otherwise we simply put will never accomplish anything.
Step 4- Make a list of everything that you think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal. This will help you define the right tools or steps to get the job done. Without a list of action steps, we simply have a goal that is difficult to accomplish.
Step 5- Organize the list into a plan. Put priorities on your objective by putting priorities and sequence. Write lines and arrows that join your boxes and circles so that you can naturally see the flow of action steps. That will help you join the loose action steps into a cohesive and directed plan.
Step 6- Take action on your plan immediately. Do something. Do anything. The hardest thing that I have noticed to do with any task is the initial work, e.g., starting a blog series, starting a workout routine, and for this weekend starting to prepare for 3 courses I am directing and 15 lectures that I need to prepare for in the coming month.
Step 7- Resolve to do something every single day that moves you toward your goal. What is so important is defining small chunks of time that you can do to chip away at the bigger task. We need to work to accomplish the goal by defining quantifiable smaller measurements that allow us incrementally to accomplish the desired task. For example, I will make sales calls to 10 people from 10 to 11 am every weekday. I will read 10 pages of this novel every day except Sunday. I shall write 2 pages of my essay every day until the task is completed. Etc.
Every morning look at the hardest task first and eat that frog to move you forward to accomplish your goals.
Eat That Frog! Part 1 of 9: Introduction
October 14, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
I would like to thank St. Clair Newbern IV, who is in my business EO forum group, for his recommendation of reading Eat That Frog! Every month, each member of my forum group presents a best business/personal pearl, and St. Clair’s was to read this book, which I have done. It has changed the way that I organize my daily routine and how I attack problems now. For that, I am grateful.
Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog! derives its title from Mark Twain’s saying that if we eat a live frog every day, that would be the worst thing that we would do that day and everything afterward will be by comparison easier. I think most of us leave our frogs on the table and keep bumping it until the next day because we simply do not want to address that task, which allows procrastination to dominate our lives a little at a time. I am certainly guilty of that as well.
If we have two ugly frogs, we tend to pick the lesser of the two frogs and bite that one first, leaving the bad frog on the table. Tracy encourages us to eat the uglier frog first. When we do that, we feel a sense of “Ahhhh” for the rest of the day, which provides fortitude of spirit, confidence, and unleashes a cascade of pleasurable endorphins. We can literally become addicted to our productivity, as the positive reinforcement goes deeper into our emotional well being as much as it does just by the fact that a certain task has been accomplished.
Tracy encourages all of us to take action immediately. Just by starting we can then progress a little at a time to accomplish our intended goals. Without having any goals, we wander around in the desert. We must start by outlining those goals and as we have talked about in our series on Maxwell Maltz we must visualize where we want to be not where we do not want to be. If we see ourselves as productive, then we can actually accomplish more. When we append words to ourselves like lazy, stupid, etc., we live our own limitations and nothing gets accomplished. We must see and believe where we want to be. He says we need 3 D’s: decision (to do it), discipline (to incorporate that action), and determination (not to stop until it becomes a habit and task is done).
This series of blogs will be focused on how we can Eat that Frog! on a daily basis so that these productivity habits can be firmly ensconced into our daily ritual, all of which can be pleasantly reinforced by how good we feel that the frog has already been eaten and we can move on with more pleasant assignments. I hope you join me, as we venture forth to eat that frog!