Brian Tracy explains how to prioritize tasks by labeling them A through E: A tasks have serious consequences if skipped, B and C are less critical, D tasks you delegate, and E tasks you eliminate. Start each day with your A tasks, and Tracy says this system can immediately boost your productivity.
Hello, I'm Brian Tracy and I want to teach you a method of time management that many people have said has changed their lives forever. So get ready, take notes, and be ready to take action afterwards. One of the most valuable time management skills you can develop is the habit of organizing your tasks by priority. I refer to this process as eat that frog. Many of you are familiar with this phrase, but for those of you who are not, the eat that frog concept means practicing the habit of tackling your biggest, most important task first. This task, or frog is the one that you are most likely to procrastinate on. It's also the task that can have the greatest positive impact on your life and results at the moment. It comes from a story by Mark Twain, by the way, where he said, if the first thing you do each morning is you eat a live frog and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that's probably the worst thing that's going to happen to you all day long and your frog is your biggest, ugliest task. So we say do the worst first. Now, the best way to organize your life is to use what we call the ABCDE method. The ABCDE method is a powerful priority setting technique that you can use every single day. Here's how it works. You start off by making a list of everything you have to do for the coming day. Preferably make your list the night before or at least the morning before you start work. Never start work without a list. Think on paper. You then go down your list and you place an A, B, C, D or E before each item on your list before you begin the first task. An A item is defined as something that is very important. This is something that you must do. It has serious consequences if you do it or you don't do it. This is a task that if you don't do it or fail to do it, like visiting a key customer or finishing a report for your boss that she needs for an upcoming board meeting, then it's going to be serious. People are going to be all over you. These are the frogs of your life. These are the things you've got to eat first. A B item is defined as a task that you should do, but it only has mild consequences if you do it or not. Like returning a phone call, going for lunch with a co worker, even checking your email. These are not major tasks. These are the tadpoles of your work life. This means that someone may be unhappy or inconvenienced if you don't do a B task, but it's nowhere as important as an A task. Returning it into an unimportant telephone message or reviewing your email, as I said, would be a B task. The rule is that you should never do a B task when there is an A task left undone. You should never be distracted by a tadpole when there is a big frog sitting there waiting to be eaten. Now, a C task is defined as something that would be nice to do, but for which there are no consequences at all whether you do it or not. C tasks include phoning a friend, having coffee or lunch with a co worker, or completing some personal business during work hours. This sort of activity has no effect at all in your work life. And you know something? Most people spend 50% of their time in C tasks that have no relevance to their work at all and then they wonder why they're not getting ahead. A D task is defined as something that you can delegate to someone else. The rule is that you should delegate everything that anyone else can do so that you can free up more time for the A tasks that only you can do. An E task is defined as something that you can eliminate altogether and it won't make any real difference. This may be a task that was important at one time, but which is no longer important to yourself or anyone else. Often it's something that you continue to do out of habit or because you enjoy it. But every minute that you spend on an E task is time taken away from a task or activity that can make a real difference in your life. The key to making this A, B C D E method work for you is to practice discipline and start immediately on your A task and then stay with it until it's complete. If you have several A tasks, list them A1, A2, A3 and start on your A1 first. Use your willpower and your mental strength to get going and keep going on this one job, the most important single task you could possibly be doing. Eat the whole frog and don't stop until it's finished completely. This alone can double your productivity the very first day you begin using this system.
