Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time

Eat That Frog! takes its title from an adage the book attributes to Mark Twain: if the first thing you do each morning is eat a live frog, you can go through the day knowing the worst is already behind you. Your "frog" is your biggest, most important task — the one you are most likely to put off, and the one with the greatest positive impact on your results. Brian Tracy's argument is that effective people are not the ones who get everything done, but the ones who reliably start on the task that matters most and stay with it until it is finished.

Across twenty-one short chapters the book lays out a practical system rather than a theory of motivation. It covers setting clear written goals ("Set the Table"), planning every day in advance, applying the 80/20 rule, the ABCDE prioritisation method, creative procrastination — deliberately choosing what not to do — focusing on your key result areas, preparing thoroughly before beginning, upgrading your key skills, creating large uninterrupted chunks of time, developing a sense of urgency, and single-handling a task through to completion. Each chapter ends with exercises meant to be applied the same day.

First published by Berrett-Koehler in 2001 and revised repeatedly since, the third edition (2017) added two chapters on technology — how it becomes a terrible master when it fragments attention, and a useful servant when it is aimed at what matters — and a fourth edition followed in 2025. Tracy's closing framing is that time management rests on three things: decision, discipline and determination.