Sunday, June 10, 2007

Eat That Frog!

I just finished reading the book Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy. The subtitle for the book is "21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time".
It was a pretty good book--nothing absolutely mind-blowing if you've ever done any looking into things like planning, being proactive, and/or increasing your effectiveness.
But the idea that caught my attention is the idea that's the premise for the book's strange title. Tracy states (and I'm not sure if this is his own metaphor or not) that if the first thing that you do when you wake up in the morning is eat a big, ugly, live frog...well, that's probably going to be the worst thing that you do all day.
Put in realistic terms, you should tackle your biggest, ugliest project first.
From a personal finance standpoint, that could be many things:

  • simply deciding to take control of your finances
  • tackling your debt
  • paying down the debt that has the highest interest rate
  • learning how to effectively invest the money that you do have

Or perhaps you already have all of those things under control and your "big frog" is more along the lines of getting into an exercise routine, learning a new skill that could advance your career, or taking the time to do things that really matter to *you*.
I'm not going to lecture you on what your big frog should be. Only you can decide that for yourself. However, whatever you think your big frog is, I do hope that you eat it.
Bon appetit!

0 comments: