Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time
is a book about getting more things done in the (limited) time that you have. This book is written by Brian Tracy who is a self-made millionaire. The basic premise of the book is that to be more productive, you have to find out that one task that you need to do which will make a difference (and not the task that you feel like doing) and take steps to do it right away with urgency. The book has a lot of good ideas to help you find your biggest frog and eat it!

Recommended for the perpetual procrastinators (yes, that means you!)

Here is a summary of 21 ways to stop procrastinating and getting more things done faster:

1. Set the table: Decide exactly what to do. Write down goals and objectives.
2. Plan every day in advance: Think on paper. Every minute spent in planning can save 5-10 minutes in execution.
3. Apply 80/20 Rule to everything: 20% of activities account for 80% of results. Always concentrate efforts on those top 20%.
4. Consider the consequences: Most important tasks and priorities are those with most serious consequences. Focus on them.
5. Practice the ABCDE method continually: Prioritize tasks from A - most important to E - least important to make sure you always work on the most important task.
6. Focus on key result areas: Identify and determine those results that you absolutely, positively have to get to do your job well, and work on them all day long.
7. Obey the Law of Forced Efficiency: There is never enough time for everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important things. What are they ?
8. Prepare thoroughly before you begin: PPPPP Proper prior preparation prevents poor performance.
9. Do your homework: The more knowledgeable and skilled you become at your key tasks, the faster you start them and sooner you get them done.
10. Leverage your special talents: Determine what it is that you are very good at doing and throw your whole heart into doing those things very well.
11. Identify your key constraints: Determine the bottlenecks or choke points, internally or externally, that set the speed at which tou achieve your most important goals and focus on alleviating them.
12. Take it one oil barrel at a time: You can accomplish biggest and most complicated jo if you just complete it one step at a time.
13. Put the pressure on yourself: Imagine that you have to leave town for a month and work as if you had to get all your major tasks completed before you left.
14. Maximize your personal powers: Identify the periods of highest mental and physical energy and structure the most important and demanding tasks around those times.
15. Motivate yourself into action: Focus on the solution rather than the problem. Always be optimistic and constructive.
16. Practice creative procrastination: Since you cannot do everything, learn to deliberately put off low value tasks, so that you have enough time to do the few things that really count.
17. Do the most difficult task first: Begin each day to do the most difficult task, the one task that can make the freatest contrivution to yourself and your work, and resolve to stay at it until it is complete.
18. Slice and dice the task: Break large, complex tasks down into smaller pieces.
19. Create large chunks of time: Organize your days around large blocks of time where you can concentrate for extended periods on your most important tasks.
20. Develop a sense of urgency: Make a habit of moving fast on your key tasks.
21. Single handle every task: Set clear priorities, start immediately on your most important task, and them work without stopping until the job is 100 percent complete.

The Innovator's Dilemma is a great book by Clayton M. Christensen. The central theme of the book is that unless specific measures are taken, disruptive innovation causes highly successful businesses to fail. This is not because they are badly managed or are technically incompetent, but because they get pressurized by their existing customers and investors to not commit the resources to the innovation. The markets for disruptive innovation are emerging, low margin, unpredictable and can not contribute substantially to the bottom line of large companies. It also becomes a conflict of values problem for the current cash-cow products and the new innovation. The solution is to form a completely new organization with new management and values and let it grow and gradually shift focus to the new organization.

The book also gives good examples of Computer systems manufactures - mainframe to minicomputers to personal desktop systems, Printer manufacturers - Dot-Matrix vs Laser vs inkjet, Departmental stores to Discount stores.

A very good read.

Update: (2005/06/27) [Here is a link to IT conversation talk with Clayton Christensen](http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail135.html "IT Conversations")

Currently the following books are on my reading shelf:

• How To Make Money In Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times or Bad is written by William J. O'Neil, who is the founder of Investor's Business Daily. In addition to pitching IBD (which is good BTW), he outlines his method of picking the winning stocks to the acronym CAN-SLIM.
  C = Current Quarterly Earnings per Share. (The absoulute number not the growth percentage) The more the better. The earnings should be consistently increasing on log scale year-over-year and they should increase with the sales growth.

  Current quarterly earnings per share should be up a major percentage-at least 25% to 50% or more-over the same quarter the previous year. The best companies might show earnings up 100% to 500% or more!

  A=Annual Earnings Increases 25-50% or more growth rate. Check earning stability in past three years. Ignore P/E ratio.

  Concentrate on stocks with proven records of significant earnings growth in each of the last three years plus strong recent quarterly improvements.

  N=New Products/Management/Highs.

  Search for companies that have developed important new products/services, or benefited from new management or new industry conditions. Then buy their stcks when they are emerging from price consolidation patterns and are close to, or actually making, new price highs.

  S=Supply and Demand. Look for companies with less number of outstanding shares, enterpreneurial management rather than caretakers, no excessive stock splits, companies buying back shares in open market, low corporate debt/equity ratio.

  Any size capitalization stock can be bought under the CANSLIM method, but small-cap stocks will be substantially more volatile, both on upside and downside. From time to time, the market will shift its emphasis from small to large caps and vice versa. Companies buying back their stock in the open market and companies showing stock ownership by management are preferred.

  L=Leader or Laggard. Buy among top two or three stocks in a group. Use relative strength to seperate leaders (>80) from laggards.

  It seldom pays to invest in laggard stocks, even if they look tantalizing cheap. Look for, and confine your purchase to, market leaders.

  I=Institutional Sponsorship: Follow the leaders. Look for >10 quality institutional owners. (IBD sponsorship rating A). Avoid "overowned by institutions" stocks.

  Only buy stocks that have at least a few institutional sponsors with better-than-average recent performance records, and invest in stocks showing an increasing total number of institutional owners in recent quarters.

  M=Market Direction. Even good quality stocks will go down when overall market direction is downwards. Look for movement in S&P 500, DJIA, Nasdaq Composite indices. Don't be blinded by the myth surrounding "Long-Term Investing".

  The key to staying on top of the stock market is not predicting or knowing what the market is going to do, but knowing what the market has actually done recently and what it is currently doing.

• Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
• Using Your Brain--For a Change