Quotes About Focus

Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it's important to you and you want to do it "eventually," just do it and correct course along the way.

What you do is more important than how you do everything else, and doing something well does not make it important.

the key to not feeling rushed is remembering that lack of time is actually lack of priorities. Take time to stop and smell the roses, or—in this case—to count the pea pods.

80% of the results come from 20% of the effort and time.

Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I'll spend the first four sharpening the axe." —Abraham Lincoln

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things." –Steve Jobs

1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important. 2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.

Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective—doing less—is the path of the productive.

Emphasize strengths, don't fix weaknesses.

80% of the consequences flow from 20% of the causes

No newspapers, magazines, audiobooks, or nonmusic radio. Music is permitted at all times. No news websites whatsoever (cnn.com, drudgereport.com, msn.com,10 etc.). No television at all, except for one hour of pleasure viewing each evening. No reading books, except for this book and one hour of fiction11 pleasure reading prior to bed. No web surfing at the desk unless it is necessary to complete a work task for that day. Necessary means necessary, not nice to have.

Busy is a decision." Here's why: Of the many, many excuses people use to rationalize why they can't do something, the excuse "I am too busy" is not only the most inauthentic, it is also the laziest. I don't believe in "too busy." Like I said, busy is a decision. We do the things we want to do, period. If we say we are too busy, it is shorthand for "not important enough.

Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.

When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do? I change my physiology. If I am near waves, I go surf them. If not, a short, intense kettlebell workout, a bike ride, a swim, a cold shower or ice plunge, Wim Hof or heart rate variability breathing [see Adam Robinson, for a description]. It's remarkable how the mind follows the body.

Lose an hour in the morning, chase it all day."—a Yiddish saying, author unknown

Time is wasted because there is so much time available.

Out of clutter, find simplicity. —Albert Einstein

Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness.

Believe it or not, it is not only possible to accomplish more by doing less, it is mandatory. Enter the world of elimination.

Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective—doing less—is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.

Oftentimes, in order to do the big things, you have to let the small bad things happen.

If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success." —James Cameron "If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly." —Colonel David Hackworth "Not my circus. Not my monkeys." —Polish proverb

But I will say this: the more clear I am about what my goals are, the more easily I can say no.