Week 31: What's the elephant, or frog, in the room?

November 28, 2015

We love it when clients share new and interesting resources with us - but imagine our surprise the day a book arrived encouraging us to Eat That Frog !

Once we dove into Brian Tracy's book, we were hooked on his simple methods for getting through unpleasant tasks and beating procrastination in the process. The title comes from a saying of Mark Twain's: "Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day." We think this wisdom applies to business school students - we hope you agree!

What is a "frog?"
A step-by-step guide to tackling challenges.

Looking for specific suggestions based on the time you have? Your 5, 30, and 60 minute to-dos for this week are below!

Sincerely,
Andrea & the 100 Week Sprint team

1. What is a "frog?"

Tracy describes your "frog" as "your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don't do something about it." So what are some of the frogs you might be facing as an MBA student?

Doing industry research;
Writing cover letters;
Reaching out to and following up with networking contacts;
Studying for a class you're not fond of;
Having a hard conversation with a partner
Creating and/or managing a LinkedIn profile.

2. A step-by-step guide to tackling challenges

Let's consider a hypothetical scenario you may find yourself in: conducting industry research as you decide whether to make the change from brand management to consulting. It's not only a challenging task, it's a decision that will affect the rest of your time in business school, not to mention your career - it seems like a natural time to procrastinate! Using Brian Tracy's frameworks as a jumping-off point, let's consider how you might eat that frog.

Step 1: Clarify your goals on paper

As you know, we are firm believers in the value of setting goals - after all, it was the topic of Week 1 of the 100 Week Sprint! Before you create an action plan, set your mind to what you want to accomplish so you won't be doing additional, time-consuming work for no clear purpose. After all, "one of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all" (pg. 10).

So instead of simply googling company names and industry terms, you want to have a defined plan. Before you get started, write a few specific goals down: "By next Friday, evaluate management consulting and brand management on dimensions that matter to me, including: culture, results-orientation and training; be able to articulate significant differences between the major players in both industries."

Read on for more steps!

To-dos this week

	Got 5 minutes? Catch that frog! Put a goal on paper that you could start working towards today.
	Got 30 minutes? Eat that frog! Start taking steps to tackle your goals. Check out the time management resources that we had suggested.
	Got an hour? Read the book! It's a quick and easy read. If you'd rather start with a smaller dose of "frog-eating," Brian Tracy's article "The Truth about Frogs" also gives some helpful tips.

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