Quotes About Productivity

Most humans manage to squander their free time, as free time makes them dysfunctional, lazy, and unmotivated—the busier they get, the more active they are at other tasks.

Steve Jobs: "People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.

that if you need something urgently done, give the task to the busiest (or second busiest) person in the office.

whenever I hear work ethics I interpret inefficient mediocrity).

others paid by the hour are not there yet.

Steve Jobs: «La gente pensa che essere concentrati significhi dire sì alla cosa sulla quale ci si deve focalizzare. Ma non è affatto così. Significa dire no ad altre cento buone idee. Dovete scegliere con cura. Di fatto io sono orgoglioso delle cose che non abbiamo fatto tanto quanto lo sono di quelle che ho fatto. Innovazione significa dire no a mille cose».

from cramming my day with appointments

Consider that thinking is time-consuming and generally a great waste of energy

Indeed, Georges Simenon, one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, only wrote sixty days a year, with three hundred days spent "doing nothing." He published more than two hundred novels.

My only measure of success is how much time you have to kill.

in Tony's case, free time was the result of productive insights.

the larger and more complex the education sector, the less obvious any links to productivity become.

Or, if I have to work, I find it preferable (and less painful) to work intensely for very short hours, then do nothing for the rest of the time (assuming doing nothing is really doing nothing), until I recover completely and look forward to a repetition, rather than being subjected to the tedium of Japanese style low-intensity interminable office hours with sleep deprivation. Main course and dessert are separate.

get a profession that is "scalable," that is, one in which you are not paid by the hour and thus subject to the limitations of the amount of your labor.

An employee is—by design—more valuable inside a firm than outside of it; that is, more valuable to the employer than the marketplace.

Other professions allow you to add zeroes to your output (and your income), if you do well, at little or no extra effort.

when done right, the job allows considerable free time.

Ninety-five percent of the employee's mind will be on company politics…

activities. It separates those professions in which one can add zeroes of income with no greater labor from those in which one needs to add labor and time (both of which are in limited supply)

People got to do something useful if they're going to take up space in the world.

It is evaluative praise that does not serve a child's interests. Appreciative praise, in contrast, can be productive both in supporting self-esteem and in reinforcing desired behavior.

Knowledge is more widely disseminated and freely available than ever before, making it much easier for people to operate at higher levels of consciousness in their work and consequently to be more productive.

A workhorse, not a show horse

What does she fear in idleness?