I had an interesting read last week. Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, a self-improvement world-wide best-seller. I think I depleted all my dashes for the following review.
I think the main selling point was first its title, then word of mouth from its readers. The title is clear and catchy, and appearing everywhere inside the book as a synonym for hard work. Eating that frog means doing that hard task you are avoiding, and is used throughout the book. And the book is good, positive comments boosted its sales.
The book is divided in 21 Chapters, each one with a specific tip, implementation ideas and examples and a frog. By a frog, I mean an Eat that frog final section: a call to action to the reader to do something.
As an example, Chapter 7 is titled Obey the law of forced efficiency. You don't have enough time to do everything, thus you have to decide what is most important. You need to select your Highest value activities, the biggest frogs you have to eat to make the greatest contribution to your work. You also have to ask yourself what you (and only you) can do that will make a real difference. And so on. In this chapter you get the deep impression that you should be deciding, always what is the best place to invest your time: your most valuable and disposable asset. And indeed, you should.
The book uses a high tone, ending almost each subsection with big, superlative statements like: this can make you one of the most productive and successful people of your generation. I don't like exaggeration, but this definitely makes you consider doing it now. Effective!
The book does not give any advice you could not get 60 years ago in Dale Carnegie's How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
(Amazon link), but it gives a new light to it all, and the frog and superlative parts make it shine in other lights.
What I found more disturbing is that it is a short book. Too short, I think. Maybe in these modern times long books are not trendy enough? The overall impression of the book was good, and it wasn't expensive either. An interesting read, but I prefer what I learnt from What it takes to be #1.
Related posts:
Time management systems
Love thy tools to maximize your productivity
Book review: How to be #1, by Vince Lombardi
What the 'broken windows theory' has to say about productivity
I think the main selling point was first its title, then word of mouth from its readers. The title is clear and catchy, and appearing everywhere inside the book as a synonym for hard work. Eating that frog means doing that hard task you are avoiding, and is used throughout the book. And the book is good, positive comments boosted its sales.
The book is divided in 21 Chapters, each one with a specific tip, implementation ideas and examples and a frog. By a frog, I mean an Eat that frog final section: a call to action to the reader to do something.
As an example, Chapter 7 is titled Obey the law of forced efficiency. You don't have enough time to do everything, thus you have to decide what is most important. You need to select your Highest value activities, the biggest frogs you have to eat to make the greatest contribution to your work. You also have to ask yourself what you (and only you) can do that will make a real difference. And so on. In this chapter you get the deep impression that you should be deciding, always what is the best place to invest your time: your most valuable and disposable asset. And indeed, you should.
The book uses a high tone, ending almost each subsection with big, superlative statements like: this can make you one of the most productive and successful people of your generation. I don't like exaggeration, but this definitely makes you consider doing it now. Effective!
The book does not give any advice you could not get 60 years ago in Dale Carnegie's How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
(Amazon link), but it gives a new light to it all, and the frog and superlative parts make it shine in other lights.What I found more disturbing is that it is a short book. Too short, I think. Maybe in these modern times long books are not trendy enough? The overall impression of the book was good, and it wasn't expensive either. An interesting read, but I prefer what I learnt from What it takes to be #1.
Related posts:
Time management systems Love thy tools to maximize your productivity Book review: How to be #1, by Vince Lombardi What the 'broken windows theory' has to say about productivityThe "Related posts" method I use involves Javascript, thus it doesn't work in the RSS feed. To view related posts, please refer to the original article. Thanks!
