Quotes About Productivity

The substantive issue is how to make appropriate choices about what to do at any point in time. The real work is to manage our actions. That

Not being aware of all you have to do is much like having a credit card for which you don't know the balance or the limit - it's a lot easier to be irresponsible.

First of all, if it's on your mind, your mind isn't clear.

Similarly, when you are away at a conference, an off-site meeting, or on vacation, you need to expect that it will require one hour to get caught up for each day you are out of the office!

is possible to be effectively doing while you are delightfully being, in your ordinary workaday world.

Think carefully about where and when and under what circumstances you can do which actions, and organize your lists accordingly.

Let's examine the three requirements to make the collection phase work: 1. | Every open loop must be in your collection system and out of your head. 2. | You must have as few collection buckets as you can get by with. 3. | You must empty them regularly.

next actions. Those ideas fall into the broad category of "project support materials," and may be anything from a notion about something you might want to do on your next vacation

Instead, the key to managing all of your stuff is managing your actions.

The ability to leverage that thinking with good collection devices that are always at hand is key to increased productivity.

Your Mind Doesn't Have a Mind of Its Own At least a portion of your mind is really kind of stupid, in an interesting way. If it had any innate intelligence and logic, it would remind you of the things you needed to do only when you could do something about them.

have discovered that one of the major reasons many people haven't had a lot of success with getting organized is simply that they have tried to do all five steps at one time.

you don't manage priorities—you have them.

In knowledge work … the task is not given; it has to be determined. 'What are the expected results from this work?' is

Talk does not cook rice. —Chinese proverb

Your mind goes through five steps to accomplish virtually any task: 1  |  Defining purpose and principles 2 | Outcome visioning 3 | Brainstorming 4 | Organizing 5 | Identifying next actions

the three requirements to make the capturing phase work: 1  |  Every open loop must be in your capture system and out of your head. 2  |  You must have as few capturing buckets as you can get by with. 3 | You must empty them regularly.

how they might be articulated into productive shape.

of professionals down in the trenches, I can safely say that virtually all of us could be doing more planning, more informally and more often, of our projects and our lives.

You can't organize what's incoming—you can only capture it and process it. Instead, you organize the actions you'll need to take based on the decisions you've made about what needs to be done.

Ask yourself, "When do I need to see what, in what form, to get it off my mind?" You build a system for function, not just to have a system.

Too much information creates the same result as too little:

many people let themselves get sucked into the second activity—dealing with unplanned and unexpected things that show up—much too easily, and let the other two slide, to their detriment. It is often easier to get wrapped up in the urgent demands of the moment than to deal with your in-tray, e-mail, and the rest of your open loops.

it is championing appropriate engagement with your world—guiding you to make the best choice of what to do in each moment, and to eliminate distraction and stress about what you're not doing.