Quotes About Focus

She probably doesn't think she can multitask well, but under pressure her bandwidth is enormous.

You have to be able to compartmentalize all that. Your problem is you only have one compartment.

The distractions I try to avoid the most are the ones I invite on myself.

CARLY PHILLIPS There is no substitute for hard work, i.e., sitting down at the computer and writing no matter what you feel like doing instead.

Don't look back. Go to the car and don't look back." "Looking back is all I've got," he said.

Don't stop to understand. You may never understand. Just keep going.

Without all this self-control, do you think I could have done all I've done?33

Different subjects and different affairs are arranged in my head as in a cupboard,' he once said. 'When I wish to interrupt one train of thought, I shut that drawer and open another. Do I wish to sleep? I simply close all the drawers, and there I am – asleep.

The art of management lies in the capacity to select from the many activities of seemingly comparable significance the one or two or three that provide leverage well beyond the others and concentrate on them.

if you base your business on the volume leader, you will be going after a larger business yourself

The number of possible indicators you can choose is virtually limitless, but for any set of them to be useful, you have to focus each indicator on a specific operational goal.

Which five would they be? Put another way, which five pieces of information would you want to look at each day, immediately upon arriving at your office?

we should try to make our managerial work take on the characteristics of a factory, not a job shop. Accordingly, we should do everything we can to prevent little stops and starts in our day as well as interruptions brought on by big emergencies.

Finally, remember that by saying "yes"—to projects, a course of action, or whatever—you are implicitly saying "no" to something else. Each time you make a commitment, you forfeit your chance to commit to something else.

As a means to obtain this leverage, a manager must understand, as Andy writes: "When a person is not doing his job, there can only be two reasons for it. The person either can't do it or won't do it; he is either not capable or not motivated." This insight enables a manager to dramatically focus her efforts. All you can do to improve the output of an employee is motivate and train. There is nothing else.

The one thing an MBO system should provide par excellence is focus. This can only happen if we keep the number of objectives small. In practice, this is rare, and here, as elsewhere, we fall victim to our inability to say "no"—in this case, to too many objectives.

if you want to work and continue to work, you must continually dedicate yourself to retaining your individual competitive advantage.

A manager must keep many balls in the air at the same time and shift his energy and attention to activities that will most increase the output of his organization. In other words, he should move to the point where his leverage will be the greatest.

Remember too that your time is your one finite resource, and when you say "yes" to one thing you are inevitably saying "no" to another.

strategic changes doesn't just start at the top. It starts with your calender

Remember that by saying "yes"—to projects, a course of action, or whatever—you are implicitly saying "no" to something else.

Selectivity - the determination to choose what we will attempt to get done and what we won't - is the only way out of the panic that excessive demands on our time can create.

I think everyone's an arrow like that, too, aiming into their own centers.

Your mind must be stronger than your feelings.