Eat That Frog | Book Review 

“You can get control of your time and your life only by changing the
way you think, work, and deal with the ever-ending river of
responsibilities that flows over you each day.” (p. ix)

Brian Tracy captures well how we may approach the Setting Leadership Priorities workshop on day three of an Academy Leadership Excellence Course. During this particular seminar, participant self-evaluation scores often drop precipitously. A common remark during the workshop self-evaluation: “I’d have a higher score on this question, but there’s nothing I can do about this in my job.” Tracy challenges us to change the way we think, and that’s the same thing I inform audiences. Until we challenge what we can or cannot do about our environment, we are unlikely to improve what we do with our time. Here’s a phrase from my Personal Leadership Philosophy which is my way of saying Eat That Frog:

“Prioritize each day by grappling the biggest issue,
seeking the opportunities particularly within conflict and failure.”

Many of Tracy’s twenty-one rules and principles (nicely summarized on pages 105-108) for getting more done are covered in our priorities workshop:

This review highlights several of Tracy’s rules: ones that may described by The Zeigarnik Effect, ones that we should consider including in our Leadership Philosophy, leading to ultimately operating in a state of flow.

The Zeigarnik Effect

Rules 9, 18 and 21, Prepare Thoroughly Before You Begin, Slice and Dice the Task, and Single Handle Every Task, respectively, stress the importance of starting a task and focusing on a single task until completed. There’s a scientific basis why this is significant. About a hundred years ago the Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik postulated that people remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. This tendency is called The Zeigarnik Effect. In contemporary terms, we might say that unfinished tasks are ”sticky.”

You’ve probably experienced this effect without realizing it. Recall the last time you went to sleep with an unfinished task still on your mind. Did you wake up with a solution? If you did, it may be The Zeigarnik Effect was in play. Consider combining delegation with this technique. Ask the assigned person to get started, perhaps creating a draft or outline document first. Once that’s done, The Zeigarnik effect is in play.

Personal Leadership Philosophy

Rules 4 and 14, Consider the Consequences and Motivate Yourself into Action, respectively, emphasize taking a long-term perspective and the importance of an optimistic mindset. Think about the most motivational leadership philosophy you’ve heard, or the most inspirational statements you’ve heard. They’re often a positive vision of the future and a leader’s commitment to create an environment where this vision will come true. Elon Musk comes to mind with the statement Making Humanity Multiplanetary posted on the SpaceX website.

Flow

Rule 20, Develop a Sense of Urgency, mentions the state of flow on page 98. This reference merits deeper exploration. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (MEE-hy CHEEK- sent-mə-HY-ee) is credited with the term. His book flow, is subtitled The Psychology of Optimal Experience. If we’re following Tracy’s rules, there’s a good chance we’re experiencing flow. Take a look at Csikszentmihalyi’s diagram:

Let’s look at this two ways: First, as our skills increase, we’ll eventually become bored without an increased challenge. Second, when initially adding a challenge, we’ll feel anxiety until our skills increase. This strongly suggests forming the habit of taking on new challenges as our skills increase and also to embrace the initial anxiety of a new challenge.

Tracy describes the state of flow as feeling elated and clear, feeling happiness and energized (p. 98). Flow is our evidence that we’re employing one or more of the 21 rules and principles well, and we’re also getting a lot more of important things done.

Summary

My leadership philosophy mentions gratitude as the result of using energy coherently, aligning it daily with purpose and strategy. Perhaps this reviewer’s definition of flow.

Optimism is the most important quality you can develop for personal
and professional success and happiness (p. 74).