Quotes About Productivity

There are good reasons for the superiority of if/when-then plans: the specific sequencing of elements within the plans can help us defeat the traditional enemies of goal achievement. The "if/when-then" wording is designed to put us on high alert for a particular time or circumstance when a productive action could be performed. We become prepared, first, to notice the favorable time or circumstance and, second, to associate it automatically and directly with desired conduct.

Writer's block? I've never heard of a plumber complain about plumber's block.

over the last 16 years, we have spent trillions of dollars on wars when we could have been investing that money productively.

Growth of Average Hourly Compensation and Productivity, 1947–2008

Your forefathers worked hard, fought hard, and died hard to make this Empire for you. Don't let them look down from heaven, and see you loafing about with hands in your pockets doing nothing to keep it up.

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.

Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.

After an author has been dead for some time, it becomes increasingly difficult for his publishers to get a new book out of him each year.

A great many people have come up to me and asked how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated.

One key to success is to have lunch at the time of day most people have breakfast.

The trick to getting things done is to list things to do in doable order.

Life is a series of tasks that you absolutely must get done before they don't matter any more.

What's a man's age He must hurry more, that's all Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold.

Doing a thing well is often a waste of time.

The Western countries have experienced a development trajectory in which higher wages led to the invention of labour-saving technology, whose use drove up labour productivity and wages with it.

If you are tired or distracted, do not code.

Adding manpower to a late project makes it later.

Just as the Hare was overconfident in its speed, so the developers are overconfident in their ability to remain productive.

LeBlanc's law: Later equals never.

the ratio of time spent reading vs. writing is well over 10:1.

Complexity kills. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build, and test." —Ray Ozzie, CTO, Microsoft Corporation

Recall that the goal of an architect is to minimize the human resources required to build and maintain the required system.

A stitch in time saves nine. The early bird catches the worm. Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do

The only way to make the deadline—the only way to go fast—is to keep the code as clean as possible at all times.