Quotes About Productivity

I just want the days of my life to add up to something. The way every day of your life, the way it can just disappear in front of the television, Denny says he wants a rock to show for each day. Something tangible. Just one thing. A little monument to mark the end of each day... Tombstone isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind.

Amphetamines are the most American drug. You get so much done. You look terrific, and your middle name is Accomplishment...Your thyroid shuts down your natural production of thyroxine. But you still look terrific. And you are, you're the American Dream. You are the constant-growth economy.

Shut up and write.

You could control what you did, if you wanted to....Was it efficient? Was it productive? ...So many people didn't bother -- a kind of stupidity...a lack of vision, or purpose. Anyone who said they just woke up and found themselves in the place they'd always wanted to be was lying; and anyone who believed such a person was a fool. It was all a matter of will.

But if anyone believes that he is working harder but is being paid less than another person, it would be like transplanting cancer into this company.

At a more serious level, the desirability of aligning our actions with the more powerful laws of nature, society, and psychology, in order to lead a productive life, is a central theme in many works, particularly the ancient Chinese classic, Tao te Ching.

business. One particularly common one is RONA, or Return on Net Assets. In manufacturing businesses, this is calculated by dividing a company's income by its net assets. Hence, a company can be judged as being more profitable either by adding income to the numerator, or by reducing the assets in the denominator. Driving the numerator up is harder, because it entails selling more products. Driving the denominator down is often easier—because you can just opt to outsource.

How are you going to decide which of those demands gets resources? The trap many people fall into is to allocate their time to whoever screams loudest, and their talent to whatever offers them the fastest reward.

The danger for high-achieving people is that they'll unconsciously allocate their resources to activities that yield the most immediate, tangible accomplishments.

I like coffee because it gives me the illusion that I might be awake. —LEWIS BLACK

Academe was one of the last strongholds of the professional time-waster.

As much as you feel as though you need to find some relevant bit of information for your story to work, research distracts from your writing and inevitably leads you down a rabbit hole of websites and articles and, more than likely, the temptation of checking your email or your Facebook profile or the baseball scores on ESPN.

The vitality of the ordinary members of society is dependent on its Outsiders. Many Outsiders unify themselves, realize themselves as poets or saints. Others remain tragically divided and unproductive, but even they supply soul-energy to society; it is their strenuousness that purifies thought and prevents the bourgeois world from foundering under its own dead-weight; they are society's spiritual dynamos.

Why not remove his desk, bring in a treadmill, hang a carrot from the ceiling and stop all pretense already.

progressive automation will probably lead to an enormous increase in the leisure hours available to the average worker.

If you want to stay alive, there is only one way: look fit for work.

shave daily, stand and walk smartly, and you'll look fit for work

Abel came to the sad conclusion that he was watching a once-great civilization slide toward the abyss. The masses wanted the state to provide for them in every way, and the politicians who promised the most largesse were the ones who were elected. They in turn gave the people what they wanted, which then placed an ever-increasing burden on the most productive members of society.

wouldn't it be easier to just do a competent job than to spend all your time covering your ass?

Unless the technology makes buyers' lives dramatically simpler, more convenient, more productive, less risky, or more fun and fashionable, it will not attract the masses no matter how many awards it wins.

Organizations that pursue differentiation to stand apart from competitors tend to focus on what to offer more of. Those that pursue cost leadership tend to focus on what to offer less of. While both of these are viable strategic options, which a great many organizations currently pursue, both will keep you stuck in the red ocean, operating on your industry's existing productivity frontier.

According to Gallup, only 30% of employees actively apply their talent and energy to move their organizations forward.

The great thing about crummy software is the amount of employment it generates.

Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time' is like saying, 'I don't want to.'