Quotes About Productivity

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.

a very important way to increase productivity is to arrange the work flow inside our black box so that it will be characterized by high output per activity, which is to say high-leverage activities.

Also, if you use the production principle of batching—that is, handling a group of similar chores at one time—many interruptions that come from your subordinates can be accumulated and handled not randomly, but at staff and at one-on-one meetings, the subject of the next chapter. If such meetings are held regularly, people can't protest too much if they're asked to batch questions and problems for scheduled times, instead of interrupting you whenever they want.

Suitably thought through, intelligent inspection schemes can actually increase the efficiency and productivity of any manufacturing or administrative process

A real time-saver is using a "hold" file where both the supervisor and subordinate accumulate important but not altogether urgent issues for discussion at the next meeting.

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.

High managerial productivity, I argue, depends largely on choosing to perform tasks that possess high leverage.

Thus, a very important way to increase productivity is to arrange the work flow inside our black box so that it will be characterized by high output per activity, which is to say high-leverage activities.

a genuinely effective indicator will cover the output of the work unit and not simply the activity involved.

Are you adding real value or merely passing information along? How do you add more value? By continually looking for ways to make things truly better in your department. You are a manager. The central thought of my book is that the output of a manager is the output of his organization. In principle, every hour of your day should be spent increasing the output or the value of the output of the people whom you're responsible for.

Keep in mind that a meeting called to make a specific decision is hard to keep moving if more than six or seven people attend. Eight people should be the absolute cutoff.

The long and short of it: if performance matters in your operation, performance reviews are absolutely necessary.

Thus I will assert again that a meeting is nothing less than the medium through which managerial work is performed. That means we should not be fighting their very existence, but rather using the time spent in them as efficiently as possible.

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.

Here I'd like to introduce the concept of leverage, which is the output generated by a specific type of work activity. An activity with high leverage will generate a high level of output; an activity with low leverage, a low level of output.

My day always ends when I'm tired and ready to go home, not when I'm done. I am never done.

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.

in the work of the soft professions, it becomes very difficult to distinguish between output and activity. And as noted, stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.

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. To determine which, we can employ a simple mental test: if the person's life depended on doing the work, could he do it? If the answer is yes, that person is not motivated; if the answer is no, he is not capable.

I am a particular fan of integrative exercise - that is, exercise that occurs in the course of doing some productive activity such as gardening, bicycling to work, doing home improvement projects and so on.

Der Fortschritt", sagte er schließlich, "ist wie eine Herde Schweine. Und so muss man diesen Fortschritt betrachten, so muss man ihn bewerten. Wie eine Herde Schweine, die auf dem ganzen Gehöft herumlaufen. Aus der Existenz dieser Herde ergeben sich verschiedene Vorteile. Es gibt Schinken. Es gibt Wurst, es gibt Speck, es gibt Eisbein in Aspik. Kurzum, Nutzen! Und da braucht man nicht die Nase rümpfen, dass alles vollgeschissen ist.

Brooding achieves nothing, save distress, which clearly does you no good.

There is a fine line between social networking and wasting your fucking life.

There is a fine line between social networking and wasting your f**king life.