Quotes About Efficiency

We are already producing enough food to feed the world. We already have technology in place that allows us to produce more than we can find a market for.

But what if I were to say to you that 25 years from now, the bulk of the energy you use to heat your home and run your appliances, power your business, drive your vehicle, and operate every part of the global economy will likewise be nearly free? That's already the case for several million early adopters

Well, Hindsight, have you ever heard of the term Busy Idiot?

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.

You could perfectly well have a machine whose function is to produce things that are themselves functionless. In a consumer society you might have quite a lot of these.

You'll fold faster than Superman on laundry day

Metric fixation leads to a diversion of resources away from frontline producers toward managers, administrators, and those who gather and manipulate data.

Diminishing utility. Sometimes, newly introduced performance metrics will have immediate benefits in discovering poorly performing outliers.5 Having gleaned the low-hanging fruit, there is tendency to expect a continuingly bountiful harvest. The problem is that the metrics continue to get collected from everyone. And soon the marginal costs of assembling and analyzing the metrics exceed the marginal benefits.

So organizations measure what they've spent, rather than what they produce, or they measure process rather than product.

I hated wasting time as much as I hated having none of it

Ajax isn't a technology. It's really several technologies, each flourishing in its own right, coming together in powerful new ways.

Documentation is never an end in itself; it is only a means to an end. Creating documentation for its own sake is not merely a waste of time—it can be counterproductive and demoralizing.

Government works less efficiently when it begins to grow out of control and takes on more and more of the responsibilities that belong to the citizens.

Takt" is business jargon. Defined as "the desired time that it takes to make one unit of production output," it is used to regulate the pace of work.)

She talked about getting some Pam cooking spray—or WD-40, but Pam was cheaper—because coating the walls of the toilet chutes with it makes waste less likely to stick.

With marketing, with customer acquisition, with accounting, I first look and say, "Hey, what's taking people's time? What can we automate?" If I can't automate it, do I really need it to be done? If I do need it to be done, all right, then we'll open a req.

It's better to be young because you can spend a lot more nights, very, very late. Because you have to get things done, and there's almost no other way to get around that. When the times come, they are critical.

Singapore is what your city could become if everyone obeyed the rules, did their jobs diligently, and just shut up. When your city gets to be this paragon of efficiency and discipline, would you still want to live there? Singapore is a model city, which is terrific if you happen to be a model human.

The bureaucrat is a man who administers things and people, and who relates himself to people as to things.

O homem moderno pensa que perde alguma coisa — o tempo — quando não faz as coisas rapidamente; todavia, ele não sabe o que fazer com o tempo que ganha — a não ser matá-lo.

Never do anything complicated when something simple will serve as well. It's one of the most important secrets of living.

Ma mõtlesin, et elame konservide ajastul.'' ''Konservide? Kuidas nii?'' Ravic osutas ajalehtedele. ''Meil pole enam tarvis mõtelda. Kõik on ette mõeldud, ette mälutud, ette tunnetatud. Konservid. Jääb üle ainult avada. Kolm korda päevas koju kätte toimetatud. Midagi pole enam tarvis ise külvata, kasvatada, pole tarvis küsimuste, kahtluste ja igatsuste tulel keeta. Konservid.

General Electric rather miraculously came back with a bid of $554,000. But Westinghouse, whose AC system was inherently cheaper and more efficient, bid $399,000. The exposition went with Westinghouse, and helped change the history of electricity.

To do our work, we all have to read a mass of papers. While energy has to be spent in looking for the essential points. I ask my colleagues and their staffs to see to it that their reports are shorter.