Quotes About Productivity

Sleep is so important. I think more important than we know. When I haven't slept, I'm not myself. I'm not as easy-going.

Labor is getting a shrinking slice of a pie that's not growing very much.

Research! A mere excuse for idleness; it has never achieved, and will never achieve any results of the slightest value.

You can't slot a time and a space and think 'ok now it's time to sit and compose.' It just doesn't work like that for me.

Nothing irritates me more than chronic laziness in others. Mind you, it's only mental sloth I object to. Physical sloth can be heavenly.

Sloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done - like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions.

Make no mistake about it. Bad habits are called 'bad' for a reason. They kill our productivity and creativity. They slow us down. They hold us back from achieving our goals. And they're detrimental to our health.

I'm pretty slow at writing papers.

I don't really know why I'm so busy, but I like it. Sometimes I think I need to slow down. And then I'm even busier!

I go into my workroom seven mornings a week. There will only be one or two mornings a week where it seems to be going well, but to earn those days you have to go through slow, slodgy days where your mind feels like porridge.

Whenever you need something from someone else before you can move forward, it's a dependency. We believe dependencies slow people down. We want people to be more independent, because that will keep them moving forward.

Artists, no matter how good their intentions, are always slower than they think.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn't write? But that fortunately hasn't proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

I try to work in the mornings. Usually, I write in my pajamas and slowly assemble myself. I don't get organized and sit down and get dressed. I do the laundry. I drift in and out of writing.

There is much that remains mysterious about why some countries grow rapidly and some grow slowly.

Indian actors are afraid to go and work abroad because people are very professional over there. In India, we have become very lazy. Everything happens slowly, and as per God's will. A 9 A.M. call time means we start working at whatever time we wish.

I'm much more prone to feeling down a lot. I just feel sluggish and unmotivated.

What would you rather do? Fix a small problem well or answer a small problem well or flail around at the big ones and pay a lot of lip service?

I like to just make things... If I have the TV on, I'm not just going to sit there. I want to do something with my hands; I've always got a project. Or I get a small group of people over, and I say, 'Let's make these things today.'

Shipping middle-class jobs to China, or hollowing them out with machines, is a win for smart managers and their shareholders. We call the result higher productivity. But, looked at through the lens of middle-class jobs, it is a loss.

Work smart. Get things done.

The main message of 'Smarter Than You Think' is an attempt to look at the productively new and interesting ways that we have begun to learn about the world, to think about what we found, and to mull it over and argue about it with other people as we use technology.

I have definitely worked on that... being efficient and also being smarter with my pressure.

I'm really boring. I get up early. I go to bed early. I don't smoke or drink. I mean, I'll eat a cupcake. I'm just not a crazy, stay-out-all-night sort of person. I love writing.