Eat That Frog! O t h e r b o o k s b y b r I a n Tr a c y

Set Posteriorities on Time-Consuming Activities
Continually review your life and work to find time-
consuming tasks and activities that you can abandon.
Cut down on television watching and instead spend the
time with your family, read, exercise, or do something
else that enhances the quality of your life.
Look at your work activities and identify the tasks
that you could delegate or eliminate to free up more
Practice Creative Procrastination
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e at t h at f ro g
!
eat that frog
!
time for the work that really counts. Begin today to prac-
tice creative procrastination, to set posteriorities wher-
ever and whenever you can. This decision alone can
enable you to get your time and your life under control.
1.
Practice “zero-based thinking” in every part of your
life. Ask yourself continually, “If I were not doing this al-
ready, knowing what I now know, would I start doing it
again today?” If it is something you would not start
again today, knowing what you now know, it is a prime
candidate for abandonment or creative procrastination.
2.
Examine each of your personal and work activities
and evaluate it based on your current situation. Select at
least one activity to abandon immediately or at least 
deliberately put off until your more important goals have
been achieved.

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The more thought you invest in planning and setting
priorities before you begin, the more important things
you will do and the faster you will get them done once
you get started. The more important and valuable a task
is to you, the more likely you will be motivated to over-
come procrastination and launch yourself into the job.
The ABCDE Method is a powerful priority setting
technique that you can use every single day. This tech-
nique is so simple and effective that it can, all by itself,
make you one of the most efficient and effective people
in your field.
Think on Paper
The power of this technique lies in its simplicity. Here’s
how it works: You start with a list of everything you have
to do for the coming day. Think on paper.