Eat That Frog: The Complete Guide to Brian Tracy’s Method for Beating Procrastination

Eat That Frog is a productivity method from Brian Tracy’s 2001 book of the same name: each day, identify your most important task, the one you are most likely to put off, and do it first, before anything else, until it is finished.

Productivity method · Themes: procrastination, priorities, focus, self-discipline

Last updated: 13 November 2026

Written by Saj Ali

Reading time: about 17 minutes

How we wrote this guide: this guide was written by Saj Ali. It draws on the text of Brian Tracy’s book _Eat That Frog!_ (third edition, 2017), his own articles and published research on procrastination, planning and focus. Every research claim links to its source.

Eat That Frog in brief

• What it is. A daily habit: do your biggest, most important task first thing, and finish it before starting anything else.
• Where it comes from. Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog!, first published in 2001 by Berrett-Koehler and now in its fourth edition.
• The two rules. If you have two frogs, eat the ugliest one first; and don’t sit looking at it for long.
• How long it takes. Ten minutes the evening before to plan, then the first block of your working day.
• Pairs well with. The ABCDE method, the 80/20 rule and time blocking.

Contents

1. What Is Eat That Frog?
2. Where the Frog Comes From
3. The Two Rules of Frog Eating
4. How to Choose Your Frog
5. How to Eat That Frog: A Step-by-Step Routine
6. A Worked Example
7. Why It Works: The Psychology Behind the Frog
8. What the Research Says: At a Glance
9. Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them
10. Eat That Frog vs Other Productivity Methods
11. Making It a Habit
12. Frequently Asked Questions
13. Key Takeaways
14. Explore More on Self Help Supermarket
15. Sources

What Is Eat That Frog?

“Eat that frog” is a simple instruction with a serious idea behind it. Your “frog”, in Brian Tracy’s words, is “your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it”. It is also “the one task that can have the greatest positive impact on your life and results at the moment” (Tracy, 2017).

The method is to identify that task every day and do it first. Tracy argued that the decision about what you do first, and what you put off, is one of the most important you make each day. If you start with the hardest and most valuable task, everything after it is easier, and you have already done the work that matters most.

The idea became the title of his best-known book, Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, published in 2001 by Berrett-Koehler. His publisher lists it among its bestsellers and says it has sold more than 4 million copies in 57 languages (Berrett-Koehler, 2025). A fourth edition was published on 29 July 2025 (Penguin Random House). The US National Institutes of Health’s Office of Research Services has used a workbook based on the book in its staff wellness materials (NIH Office of Research Services).

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Where the Frog Comes From

Tracy opened the book with an old saying: if the first thing you do each morning is eat a live frog, you can go through the day knowing that it is probably the worst thing that will happen to you all day. He credited the line to Mark Twain (Tracy, 2017).

The attribution is uncertain. Quote Investigator, which traces the history of well-known quotations, found no evidence that Twain said it and traced the idea back to the 18th-century French writer Nicolas Chamfort (Quote Investigator). The image has stuck either way, because it captures something most people recognise: the task you dread grows larger the longer you look at it.

Tracy also built the frog into a small vocabulary that runs through his work. Your most important tasks are frogs; your A-1 task is “your biggest, ugliest frog of all”; minor tasks are “tadpoles” (Tracy, 2017). The language makes it easy to ask, at any point in the day, “Am I eating a frog or playing with tadpoles?” You can read more about how the idea fits into his wider system in our Brian Tracy article.

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The Two Rules of Frog Eating

Tracy gave two rules that sum up the method (Tracy, 2017).

Rule 1: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first

If you have two important tasks, “start with the biggest, hardest, and most important task first”. Tracy told readers to “discipline yourself to begin immediately and then to persist until the task is complete before you go on to something else”, and to resist the temptation to start with the easier one. Easy tasks give a quick sense of progress, but they use up the hours when your energy and attention are at their best.

Rule 2: If you have to eat a live frog, it doesn’t pay to sit and look at it for very long

The second rule is about speed of starting. Tracy’s advice was to develop “the lifelong habit of tackling your major task first thing each morning”, before you do anything else and without taking too much time to think about it (Tracy, 2017). The longer you deliberate, the more reasons you find to delay.

In practice: the first rule tells you which task to do first. The second tells you to start it now. Together they turn a vague intention to “be more productive” into one concrete decision each morning.

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How to Choose Your Frog

The hardest part of the method is not doing the frog; it is choosing the right one. Tracy offered several ways to find it, most of which have their own guides on Self Help Supermarket.

1. Write everything down. He recommended “thinking on paper”: list every task before you start, ideally the evening before (Tracy, 2017).
2. Ask which task has the biggest consequences. Tracy wrote that the potential consequences of doing or not doing a task are “the key determinants of how important a task really is”. He linked this to the sociologist Edward Banfield’s finding that successful people take a “long time perspective”, thinking years ahead when they decide what to do today (Tracy, 2017).
3. Apply the 80/20 rule. If you have ten tasks, two of them are likely to be worth more than the other eight together. Your frog is one of those two. See our guide to the 80/20 rule.
4. Use the ABCDE method. Mark every task A, B, C, D or E. Your A-1 is your frog. See our ABCDE method guide.
5. Check your key result areas. Your frog should usually sit inside one of the five to seven areas you are actually paid to deliver. See our Law of Three and key result areas guide.

A useful test Tracy repeated, which he said came from Peter Drucker, is to ask: “What can I and only I do, that if done well, will make a real difference?” (Tracy, 2017). If a task fits that description and you have been avoiding it, it is almost certainly your frog. You can read more about Drucker’s influence on our Peter Drucker page.

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How to Eat That Frog: A Step-by-Step Routine

Here is the method as a daily routine, combining the steps Tracy describes across the book (Tracy, 2017).

The evening before (about 10 minutes)

1. Write tomorrow’s list. Put down everything you need to do, without sorting it yet.
2. Pick the frog. Ask which single task would make the biggest difference if you completed it. If two tasks qualify, choose the harder or less pleasant one.
3. Prepare the ground. Gather everything you need: files, notes, tools, a clear desk. One of the book’s 21 chapters, “Prepare Thoroughly Before You Begin”, is devoted to this step (Tracy, 2017).
4. Decide when you will start. Put a time on it, such as “8:30, before email”. Research on “if–then” plans suggests that naming when and where you will act makes you more likely to follow through (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).

In the morning

1. Start before anything else. No email, messages or news first. Open the task and begin.
2. Work until it is finished, or until the block ends. Tracy’s ideal was to single-handle the task until it is 100 percent complete. If the task is too big for one sitting, work on it for a fixed block (60 to 90 minutes is a common choice) and stop at a clear point.
3. Use a starter if you are stuck. If you can’t face the whole task, use the salami slice or Swiss cheese method: do one small piece, or work on it for just 10 minutes.
4. Notice the lift. Tracy wrote that completing an important task gives you a burst of energy and self-esteem, which he called a “positive addiction” (Tracy, 2017). Whatever the cause, many people find the rest of the day easier once the frog is done.

At the end of the day

Review what happened. Did you start on time? What got in the way? A few minutes of review, as in an after-action review, helps you choose a better frog and plan a better start tomorrow.

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A Worked Example

Imagine Maya, a marketing manager. Her list for Tuesday has 14 items, including answering emails, a team catch-up, updating a slide deck, booking travel, reviewing a contractor’s invoice, and writing a proposal for a new client that is due on Friday.

• The tempting start: emails and quick admin. They feel productive and take most of the morning.
• The frog: the client proposal. It is the hardest item, the one she has been putting off, and the only one that could win new business.
• Her plan: on Monday evening she opens the client brief, saves last year’s best proposal as a template and blocks 8:30 to 10:30 on Tuesday as “proposal – no email”.
• Tuesday: she writes the first draft by 10:30. The rest of the list still gets done, but the day’s most valuable work is finished before the first meeting.

She does not need to finish the whole proposal in one sitting. What matters is that the most important task gets her best time, not whatever time is left over.

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Why It Works: The Psychology Behind the Frog

Tracy was a practitioner, not a researcher, and the book doesn’t test its own advice. But several of its ideas line up with what psychologists have found about procrastination and focus.

We put off tasks that are unpleasant and far away

In the largest review of procrastination research, the psychologist Piers Steel found that people are most likely to delay tasks they find aversive and whose rewards are distant, and that procrastination is closely linked to impulsiveness and low confidence in one’s ability to do the task (Steel, 2007). Your frog is, almost by definition, aversive and important. Committing in advance to do it first removes the daily decision about whether to face it.

Urgent tasks crowd out important ones

In five experiments, Meng Zhu, Yang Yang and Christopher Hsee found that people often choose tasks that are merely urgent over tasks with better payoffs, even when the urgency is spurious, which they called “the mere urgency effect” (Zhu, Yang & Hsee, 2018). Starting the day with email and small requests is a common example. Eating the frog first is a simple guard against it.

If–then plans help people act

A meta-analysis by Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran of 94 independent tests found that “implementation intentions”, plans that spell out when, where and how you will act, had a medium-to-large positive effect on reaching goals (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006). Choosing your frog the evening before and deciding exactly when you will start is a form of this.

Switching tasks costs time

Tracy claimed that starting and stopping a task “can increase the time necessary to complete the task by as much as 500 percent” (Tracy, 2017). He did not cite a source, and we have not found research that supports that figure. Research does show that switching between tasks has measurable time costs (Rubinstein, Meyer & Evans, 2001), and that after switching away from an unfinished task, people carry “attention residue” that lowers performance on the next one (Leroy, 2009). The direction of his advice holds up even if the number doesn’t.

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What the Research Says: At a Glance

No study has tested “eat the frog” as a complete method. This table shows how its main ingredients compare with published research.

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Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

• Choosing a frog that is too big. “Write the book” is not a frog; it is a project. Pick the next concrete piece: “write the first 500 words of chapter 3”.
• Picking the wrong frog. A task you dread is not automatically important. Check it against its consequences, or against your key result areas.
• Checking email “just for a minute”. For many people this is where the morning disappears. Keep messages closed until the frog block ends.
• Having three frogs a day. One frog a day, done well, is the method. If you have several A tasks, number them A-1, A-2, A-3 and do them in order.
• Ignoring your energy. If you are reliably foggy at 7 a.m., eat the frog in your first clear-headed block instead. The principle is “most important first”, not “earliest possible”.
• Skipping the planning. Without the evening list, the morning decision becomes a debate. Tracy’s “10/90 rule” held that the first 10 percent of time spent planning saves up to 90 percent of the time in doing the work; treat that as his estimate, not a measured figure.

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Eat That Frog vs Other Productivity Methods

Eat That Frog works well alongside other methods, because it answers just one question: what do I do first?

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Making It a Habit

Tracy’s advice was to practise the method every day until it becomes automatic: decide the night before, start before anything else, and keep going until the task is done (Tracy, 2017). Research on habits suggests that this takes longer than the popular “21 days”. In a study of 96 volunteers who repeated a daily behaviour in the same context, the time taken to reach near-maximum automaticity ranged from 18 to 254 days, and missing a single day did not materially affect the process (Lally et al., 2010).

That gives you three practical rules:

• Tie it to a fixed cue. For example, “after I pour my first coffee, I open the frog”.
• Keep the cue the same every day. Consistency of context seems to matter more than willpower.
• Don’t quit after a bad day. One missed morning is normal and doesn’t reset your progress.

If you want to strengthen the morning side of the habit, see our guide to Tracy’s golden hour morning routine. For the broader skill underneath it, see our self-discipline guide.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What does “eat that frog” mean?

It means doing your most important and most difficult task first, before anything else. Brian Tracy used the frog as a symbol of the task you are most likely to put off but that would make the biggest difference if you completed it.

Who came up with Eat That Frog?

Brian Tracy, in his book Eat That Frog! (Berrett-Koehler, 2001). He opened the book with a saying about eating a live frog in the morning that he credited to Mark Twain; Quote Investigator traces the idea to the French writer Nicolas Chamfort.

What are the two rules of eating the frog?

First, if you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first: start with the biggest, hardest and most important task. Second, if you have to eat a live frog, don’t sit and look at it for very long: start quickly, without overthinking.

How do I know which task is my frog?

Write down everything you need to do, then ask which single task would make the biggest positive difference if you completed it. The ABCDE method and the 80/20 rule both help: your frog is your A-1 task, and it is usually one of the top 20 percent of items on your list.

Do I have to eat the frog first thing in the morning?

Tracy recommended first thing, before email or other work. The principle that matters is doing your most important task in your first good block of time, before smaller tasks take over. If your mind is clearest a little later, start your frog then.

What if my frog is too big to finish in one go?

Break it down. Use the salami slice method to do one small piece, or the Swiss cheese method to work on it for a set time, such as 10 or 30 minutes. Each completed piece counts as eating that day’s frog.

Is there scientific evidence for Eat That Frog?

The complete method hasn’t been tested in a study, but its parts are supported. Plans that set when and where you will act improve follow-through, people tend to choose urgent tasks over important ones, and task switching has measurable costs.

How many chapters does Eat That Frog have?

The book is organised around 21 methods, such as setting the table, planning every day in advance, applying the 80/20 rule, using the ABCDE method and single-handling every task.

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Key Takeaways

• Your frog is your most important task, the one you are most likely to put off.
• Tracy’s two rules: eat the ugliest frog first, and don’t look at it for long.
• Choose your frog the evening before, and decide exactly when you will start.
• Do it in your first good block of the day, before email and small tasks.
• Research supports the parts of the method: if–then plans, guarding against urgency and reducing task switching.
• Treat the precise percentages in the book as Tracy’s estimates rather than research findings.

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Explore More on Self Help Supermarket

Use these pages alongside this one:

• Brian Tracy: His Life, Philosophy, Techniques and Legacy – our in-depth guide to the man behind the method
• Brian Tracy: expert profile – his books, videos and key ideas in one place
• The ABCDE Method – rank your list so your frog is obvious
• The 80/20 Rule – find the vital few tasks that matter most
• Salami Slice and Swiss Cheese – break a big frog into small first steps
• Time Blocking and Single-Tasking – protect your frog with a block of focused time
• Procrastination – causes of procrastination and ways to beat it
• Productivity – more ways to get the right things done
• Browse all self-help techniques – compare every method on Self Help Supermarket.

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Sources

1. Tracy, B. Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, 3rd edition. Berrett-Koehler, 2017. O’Reilly listing. https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/eat-that-frog/9781626569430/
2. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. “2025 Berrett-Koehler Bestsellers List”, 8 October 2025. https://bkconnection.com/blogs/the-bk-exchange/316-berrett-koehler-bestsellers
3. Penguin Random House. Eat That Frog!, Fourth Edition (Berrett-Koehler, 29 July 2025). https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/786685/eat-that-frog-fourth-edition-by-brian-tracy/
4. National Institutes of Health, Office of Research Services. Eat That Frog! workbook (summary of the book’s 21 methods). https://ors.od.nih.gov/pes/dats/wellness/documents/eatfrogworkbook.pdf
5. Quote Investigator. “Eat a Live Frog Every Morning, and Nothing Worse Will Happen to You the Rest of the Day”, 3 April 2013. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/03/eat-frog/
6. Self Help Supermarket. “Brian Tracy (1944–2026): His Life, Philosophy, Techniques and Legacy”. https://www.selfhelpsupermarket.com/brian-tracy-tribute/
7. Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601%2806%2938002-1
8. Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65–94. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.65
9. Zhu, M., Yang, Y., & Hsee, C. K. (2018). The mere urgency effect. Journal of Consumer Research. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucy008
10. Rubinstein, J. S., Meyer, D. E., & Evans, J. E. (2001). Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27(4), 763–797. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.27.4.763
11. Leroy, S. (2009). Why is it so hard to do my work? The challenge of attention residue when switching between work tasks. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109(2), 168–181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.04.002
12. Aeon, B., Faber, A., & Panaccio, A. (2021). Does time management work? A meta-analysis. PLOS ONE, 16(1), e0245066. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245066
13. Wittmann, M., Dinich, J., Merrow, M., & Roenneberg, T. (2006). Social jetlag: Misalignment of biological and social time. Chronobiology International, 23(1–2), 497–509. https://doi.org/10.1080/07420520500545979
14. Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674