Quotes About Productivity

Near my desk, I keep a large plastic carton filled with fresh notebooks and stationery of various kinds, sizes, and qualities.

You have various institutions like law firms and accounting firms which bill by the hour. I'm really against that. You have an incentive to go slowly, be there as long as possible, to over-research things and over-staff.

Internal fights between various agencies, i.e. between the CIA and FBI, are highly counterproductive.

When you get a full night's sleep, which can vary from 7 to 9 hours for different individuals, it's been proven that all aspects of performance increase.

You cannot just be working in a vast, air-conditioned loft space and think you are going to make a decent painting. Francis Bacon had a special studio built, and he felt completely emasculated in there. I have to be somewhere comfortable.

I'm killing two birds at once, so to speak. Animal-based food kills people. This way, by going vegan... we get healthy and save animals. I'm being selfish, too, because if I can get my employees healthier, we cut down on sick days and gain more productivity.

You can't be the accountant in your accounting firm. You can't cut the grass in your landscaping business. You can't work on the vehicles in your auto repair shop... And you really can't spend all of your time managing those actions, either.

But I find the best things I do, I do when I'm trying to avoid doing something else I'm supposed to be doing. You know, you're working on something. You get bugged, or you lose your enthusiasm or something. So you turn to something else with an absolute vengeance.

Chinese productivity is the highest in the world but the way they do it is by borrowing the technology from abroad, either by joint ventures or other means.

The verbs that are used for people who write quickly are almost never flattering.

When journalism is treated as just another widget in a commercial enterprise, the focus isn't on truth, verification or public good, but productivity and output.

As for my stuff, I'm just doing guest verses for other people's records. I try to stay recording, because if I don't, I get rusty.

If I do a song with a chorus and a verse, it takes me about 25 minutes. If I do a song with two verses or stretch out the song, it takes me about 30 to 35 minutes.

My only verse I remember really working on was 'Mixtape,' and I took 45 minutes on that because I wanted it to be tight.

I think the most productive thing to do during times of change is to be your best self, not the best version of someone else.

Keep a Day Timer so you know where you are supposed to be and when. Whether this system is in a tangible, printed version or on your mobile device, by having a Day Timer, you can stay organized throughout the day.

Anyone with an inbox knows what I'm talking about. A dozen emails to set up a meeting time. Documents attached and edited and reedited until no one knows which version is current. Urgent messages drowning in forwards and cc's and spam.

Your most scarce resource is focus.

We don't have enough time to move fast

Speculation about the past is inefficient. And therefore irrelevant to achieving your goal. So

shorthand at seventy words a minute.

My mother's advice was, don't lose time on useless emotions like anger, resentment, remorse, envy. Those, she said, will just sap time; they don't get you where you want to be.

Well, emotions like anger, remorse, and jealousy are not productive. They will not accomplish anything, so you must keep them under control. In the days when I was a flaming feminist litigator, I never said to judges who asked improper questions, "You sexist pig.

What's funny is the act of cleaning out my desk takes an hour, yet I've been dreading it for so many damn years. How much time have I wasted in fretting about organizing this instead of actually organizing? I kind of don't want to know.