Eat That Frog: A Practical Approach to Reaching Your Goals

... to make better short-term decisions.

If you question the consequences of doing/not doing a to-do before you start on it, it not only makes it easier to find your frogs, but it also makes it easier to find time-wasting tasks that are better deleted from your list or delegated to someone else.

• A tasks: things you must do - they're your frogs. 
• B tasks: things you should do. Replying to emails or attending meetings are often should-do tasks. 
• C tasks: nice-to-dos. You probably want to do them, but there are no consequences if you don't.
• D tasks: things you should delegate to someone else so you have more time for your A tasks.
• E tasks: things you should eliminate. You don't need or want to do them.

Understand what you were hired to do and the results you are supposed to deliver.

By being aware of hat you're truly accountable for, you can justify delegating and deleting tasks that aren't related to your job-specific tasks and goals.

• Plan your frog for the next day at the end of the previous workday and block off time to work on that frog so you can tackle it with no interruptions.
• Make sure you have all of the things you need to do your work and a comfortable workspace to do it in.

Once you have your goals broken down into tasks, you have to work on those tasks one at a time. 

Prioritize them, schedule them, and then when it's time to eat your frogs, focus on them completely.

Identify the things that are holding you back, internal and external and eliminate them.

More often than not our constraints are internal: we procrastinate because of impostor syndrome, or we fill our time with low-value tasks and distractions.

Schedule time on your calendar at the end of every workday for working on your frog the next morning, or create a recurring meeting for the first hours of every day to make sure you always have time blocked for goal tasks.

After you start working on a frog, continue working on it until you can take it off of your to-do list.

To do this effectively, you'll need to make sure you have tasks that are small enough to complete in one sitting. Also, make sure you have time blocked to work on your task.

1. Define your goals and write them down.
2. Break those goals down into tasks.
3. Break those tasks down into the smallest possible subtasks.
4. Prioritize your tasks, and delete/delegate tasks you don't need to do.
5. Schedule time on your calendar every single day, ideally first thing in the morning, to work on your highest-priority goal task.
6. Focus on your goal task during your scheduled time, and work on it until it's complete.