Quotes About Productivity

A busy office is like a food processor—it chops your day into tiny bits. Fifteen minutes here, ten minutes there, twenty here, five there. Each segment is filled with a conference call, a meeting, another meeting, or some other institutionalized unnecessary interruption.

Which features you choose to include or omit have a lot to do with less software too. Don't be afraid to say no to feature requests that are hard to do. Unless they're absolutely essential, save time/effort/confusion by leaving them out. Slow down too. Don't take action on an idea for a week and see if it still seems like a great idea after the initial buzz wears off. The extra marinading time will often help your brain come up with an easier solution.

So sacrifice some of your darlings for the greater good. Cut your ambition in half. You're better off with a kick-ass half than a half-assed whole. Most

They even create crises. They don't look for ways to be more efficient because they actually like working overtime. They enjoy feeling like heroes.

Esta adicción no sólo es innecesaria, también es estúpida. Trabajar más horas no implica que estés más involucrado o que seas más productivo. Simplemente implica trabajar más horas.

Get the chisel out and start making something real. Anything else is just a distraction.

All those chores you don't have the will to complete after slugging it out with the highway collect into one mean list due on Saturday. By the time you've taken out the trash, picked up the dry cleaning, gone to the hardware store, and paid your bills, half the weekend is gone.

No se esfuerzan en buscar sistemas para ser más eficientes porque a ellos en realidad lo que les gusta es trabajar muchas horas. Les encanta sentirse héroes. Buscan problemas (generalmente sin darse cuenta) simplemente para poder seguir trabajando mucho.

Working more doesn't mean you care more or get more done. It just means you work more. Workaholics

If you absolutely have to work on long-term projects, try to dedicate one day a week (or every two weeks) to small victories that generate enthusiasm. Small victories let you celebrate and release good news. And you want a steady stream of good news. When there's something new to announce every two weeks, you energize your team and give your customers something to be excited about.

The big transition with a distributed workforce is going from synchronous to asynchronous collaboration. Not only do we not have to be in the same spot to work together, we also don't have to work at the same time to work together.

At 37signals, we've found that we need a good four hours of overlap to avoid collaboration delays and feel like a team.

The answer isn't more hours, it's less bullshit.

el auténtico enemigo en un ambiente de trabajo a distancia de éxito es el exceso, no el déficit de trabajo.

the number one counter to distractions is interesting, fulfilling work.

Los adictos al trabajo no son héroes. No invierten su tiempo, lo malgastan. El héroe de verdad se fue a su casa, porque fue capaz de encontrar una forma más eficiente de hacer su trabajo.

Break that long list down into a bunch of smaller lists. For example, break a single list of a hundred items into ten lists of ten items. That means when you finish an item on a list, you've completed 10 percent of that list, instead of 1 percent. Yes, you still have the same amount of stuff left to do. But now you can look at the small picture and find satisfaction, motivation, and progress. That's a lot better than staring at the huge picture and being terrified and demoralized.

What do you gain if you ban employees from, say, visiting a social-networking site or watching YouTube while at work? You gain nothing. That time doesn't magically convert to work. They'll just find some other diversion.

The big transition with a distributed workforce is going from synchronous to asynchronous collaboration

The right time to hire is when there's more work than you can handle for a sustained period of time.

You'll be doing your company more harm than good if you bring in talented people who have nothing important to do.

Long lists are guilt trips. The longer the list of unfinished items, the worse you feel about it. And at a certain point, you just stop looking at it because it makes you feel bad. Then you stress out and the whole thing turns into a big mess.

Release yourself from the 9am-to-5pm mentality. It might take a bit of time and practice to get the hang of working asynchronously with your team, but soon you'll see that it's the work—not the clock—that matters.

So do less. Your project won't suffer nearly as much as you fear. In fact, there's a good chance it'll end up even better. You'll be forced to make tough calls and sort out what truly matters.