Quotes About Productivity

Because I am kind of distracted, I don't tend to sit at my desk 9 to 5. It can be two hours a day, or, when I'm in the final editing stages, it can be 14 hours a day.

I think writing is a part-time career, because otherwise you get a little stale, maybe even self-indulgent, when you have to fill the hours with sentences. I don't think, if I wrote 12 hours a day, my work would be much better.

The only thing that's really hard for me is when I go to bed after everybody else in my house gets up. And that - you just feel stale. It just feels awful to be still finishing your day when everybody else is starting theirs.

Generally, I like to write in the morning before all the dust of dreams has blown away. Beforehand, I read two papers, cook my breakfast and then settle down in front of the word processor, usually by 8 A.M. I'll write, and then check e-mail or voicemail when things stall.

But you know, there's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one-on-one, getting all this attention - they go home, they're finished. They don't stall, they don't do their homework in front of the TV.

You know, I can't imagine 9 to 5 writing. That takes some stamina.

We need people to go to work. If you're on food stamps, and you're able-bodied, we need you to go to work. If you're on disability insurance and you're not supposed to be, you're not truly disabled; we need you to go back to work.

Inflation destroys savings, impedes planning, and discourages investment. That means less productivity and a lower standard of living.

By increasing productivity and becoming more competitive, we will be able to offer better opportunities and improve the standard of living for all Mexicans.

I'm very rigid about my schedule. I sit down at 8 A.M., and the Internet blocker goes on. My standard time is 120 minutes. I'm a compulsive writer, so it reminds me to stop writing... If I write more than that, I turn into an ogre for my kids.

Agrarian reform should not merely subdivide misery, it must raise living standards. Ownership raises the farmer from his, but productivity will keep him on his feet.

As a consequence, progress has come to mean simply more power, more profit, more productivity, more paper prosperity, all of which are convertible into standards concerned only with size or magnitude rather than quality or excellence.

Most of the day I work standing up, as I once read somewhere that it's the best position for the back.

Coming from a large immigrant family, my parents didn't encourage a lot of 'play' when I was growing up. It was hard to get my Dad to even sit down to watch television with us (he'd watch it standing up, always ready to go do something more productive). Downtime was discouraged, as was any college degree that wasn't law, medicine or business.

From a productivity standpoint, you're supposed to reduce headcount on par with declining revenue. If you believe the environment isn't going to improve, you should take a bigger cut to get in front of the problems.

MIA stands for 'missing in action,' which is the way others can experience you when you're too busy multi-tasking, being pulled at by the world and by everything that's going on in your head, and, essentially, when you're too busy being busy.

Men are paid, not merely for what they know, but more particularly for WHAT THEY DO WITH THAT WHICH THEY KNOW.

If you want to get something done, give it to a busy man.

The fundamental principle of human action, the law, that is to political economy what the law of gravitation is to physics is that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion

Call on a business man only at business times, and on business; transact your business, and go about your business, in order to give him time to finish his business.

Early to bed and early to rise," Mazer intoned, "makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes.

I call that man idle who might be better employed.

When men are not regretting that life is so short, they are doing something to kill time.

If a man takes one day off, it takes him about three days to get the harness fitted again.