Quotes About Productivity

Parkinson's Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. It

The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is only earnest to secure the kernels of time, and does not exaggerate the value of the husk.' Think

Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective—doing less—is the path of the productive.

80% of the consequences flow from 20% of the causes

Love yourself . . . You've got to love yourself before you can love others. Without it, nothing productive is going to happen, and we can all bang our heads on the wall.

The minimum effective dose (MED) is defined simply: the smallest dose that will produce a desired outcome.

Busy is a decision." Here's why: Of the many, many excuses people use to rationalize why they can't do something, the excuse "I am too busy" is not only the most inauthentic, it is also the laziest. I don't believe in "too busy." Like I said, busy is a decision. We do the things we want to do, period. If we say we are too busy, it is shorthand for "not important enough.

Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.

A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days." –Annie Dillard

Lose an hour in the morning, chase it all day."—a Yiddish saying, author unknown

Time is wasted because there is so much time available.

Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate. —DAVE BARRY, Pulitzer

Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness.

As someone who read exclusively nonfiction for nearly 15 years, I can tell you two things: It's not productive to read two fact-based books at the same time (this is one), and fiction is better than sleeping pills for putting the happenings of the day behind you.

Believe it or not, it is not only possible to accomplish more by doing less, it is mandatory. Enter the world of elimination.

Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective—doing less—is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.

My original intention with The 4-Hour Workweek (4HWW), The 4-Hour Body (4HB), and The 4-Hour Chef (4HC) was to create a trilogy themed after Ben Franklin's famous quote: "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." People constantly ask me, "What would you put in The 4-Hour Workweek if you were to write it again? How would you update it?" Ditto for 4HB and 4HC. Tools of Titans contains most of the answers for all three.

most cold calls didn't get to the intended person for one reason: gatekeepers. If I simply made all my calls from 8:00–8:30 A.M. and 6:00–6:30 P.M., for a total of one hour, I was able to avoid secretaries and book more than twice as many meetings

Lifestyle Design is thus not interested in creating an excess of idle time, which is poisonous, but the positive use of free time, defined simply as doing what you want as opposed to what you feel obligated to do.

A Lonely Place Is an Unmotivated Place

Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.

What would this look like if it were easy? "This" could be anything. That morning, it was answering a laundry list of big questions. What would this look like if it were easy? is such a lovely and deceptively leveraged question. It's easy to convince yourself that things need to be hard, that if you're not redlining, you're not trying hard enough. This leads us to look for paths of most resistance, often creating unnecessary hardship in the process.

There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do. —BILL WATTERSON,

Before spending time on a stress-inducing question or problem, consider this: If you can't define it or act upon it, forget it.