Quotes About Efficiency

Daniels began filming elite athletes, and he noticed something fascinating: they all tended to run at about 180 steps per minute—ninety per leg—whether going fast or slow. To accelerate, they just lengthened their stride without changing that 180-beat rhythm. Daniels then turned his attention toward new runners, and found they typically had a much slower cadence, more like 160. The mistake these beginners were making, Daniels realized, was confusing quick with hard.

eased back to a walk, obeying the ultrarunner's creed: "If you can't see the top, walk." When you're running fifty miles, there's no dividend in bashing up the hills and then being winded on the way down; you only lose a few seconds if you walk, and then you can make them back up by flying downhill.

Al basar su alimentación en frutas, vegetales y cereales integrales, Scott obtiene la máxima cantidad de nutrientes del menor número posible de calorías, así que su cuerpo no se ve forzado a cargar o procesar volumen innecesario. Y dado que los carbohidratos abandonan el estómago con mayor rapidez que las proteínas, le es posible meter más horas de ejercicio en el día, ya que no debe esperar sentado a digerir las albóndigas.

even though our brains account for only 2 percent of our body weight, they demand 20 percent of our energy,

los mejores maratonistas del mundo corrían como niños de jardín de infancia. «Si ves a niños corriendo en el patio de recreo, notas cómo sus pies aterrizan justo debajo de ellos mismos y luego se impulsan hacia atrás

Look how they point their toes down, not up, like gymnasts doing the floor exercise. And their backs! They could carry water buckets on their heads without spilling a drop! How many years have I been telling my kids to straighten up and run from the gut like that?).

He's not lazy. He's just highly inefficient.

I generally find subtlety a waste of time.

il mio merito non è di essere totalmente inefficiente ma di aver voluto esserlo

Is focused on a few important goals (at most), not off chasing every distraction;

Resources are what he uses to do it, processes are how he does it, and priorities are why he does it.

People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.

Culture is a way of working together toward common goals that have been followed so frequently and so successfully that people don't even think about trying to do things another way. If a culture has formed, people will autonomously do what they need to do to be successful.

Do what has to be done, he thought. Do it quickly and well. You're a professional. Pay the price… whatever it may be. Head

It seems to happen sudden—a fighter gets good. He gets easy and graceful. He learns how to save himself—no energy wasted... he slips and slides— he travels with the punch. . . . Oh, sure, I like the way you're shaping up.

The secret of getting things done quickly is not to hurry.

There will always be house rules in every place. And you can be efficient and beneficial to everybody all the time by stepping on all corners of the place once in a while.

For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to get themselves filed.

Everybody thinks making films back to back is a big deal but they did it all the time in the old days.

Gentleness doesn't get work done unless you happen to be a hen laying eggs.

AD Jones' Büro ist fensterlos und nüchtern. Er hat sich ein Eckbüro mit großartiger Aussicht nehmen können, doch als ich ihn einmal deswegen gefragt habe, lautete seine Antwort sinngemäß: "Ein guter Chef sollte nicht allzu viel Zeit im Büro verbringen." p. 26

But it seemed that for every competent man or woman there was an incompetent man above. It was the law of trickle-up irresponsibility. And the competent man and woman spent so much time manipulating the incompetent men they had neither the time nor the motivation to do their jobs properly.

There are many branches and brands of neoliberalism, but behind them stands one dominant theme: that free markets in which individuals maximize their material interests provide the best means for satisfying human aspirations, and that markets are in particular to be preferred over states and politics, which are at best inefficient and at worst threats to freedom.

Life should be built on the conservation of energy.