Choices II

I'm reading a book right now, "Eat that Frog". So far it's a wonderful book with real practical advice on how to stop procrastinating and to get things done. The main premise of the book starts with a quote from Mark Twain. He says, "If the first thing that you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that it is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long." Hence the title of the book.

This is wonderful imagery and something that is very easy for me to apply to my life. In fact tonight I saw a little home improvement project that I've been putting off for 3 weeks and I just said outloud, "I'm going to eat that stupid frog right now!". Want to take a guess at how long it took me to eat that frog? About 3 minutes. So I ran across another little project that I've been putting off for about 2 weeks and at that frog too. The big idea in the book is to eat the ugliest frog, the biggest, nastiest one first thing in the morning and not do anything else until it is done. Once you've taken care of this big task you can go on and enjoy your day knowing that something big has been accomplished. Then you can choose to eat the next ugliest frog, and so on and so on. There are many more tips and tricks in this book, but you'll just have to spend the $10 to get the book and learn more.

There was one additional idea that I have heard before, but reading it in this book drove the point home a little more. The author calls it "zero based thinking". He says to ask yourself continually, "If I were not doing this already, knowing what I now know, would I start doing it again today?"

What a good question! So basically what this question does is takes you back to the beginning and forces you to think clearer. Think with a different perspective. Obviously if you say, "No, knowing what I know now, there is no way I would have chosen X", then you should stop doing X. Or sell X. Or run away from X. Whatever your X is. If you can say, "Yes, I would do X again." Then congrats, you've made a good decision and you can feel good that you are headed in the right direction. No regrets.

Try to use this zero based thinking and see what it does for you. See if it won't help you to make decisions better. And maybe even more importantly know when you should change a certain decision. Doing this sooner rather than later can really make a big difference in your life.