Quotes About Prioritization

Focus is about controlling your behavior, so it becomes easier to do the right things, and harder to be distracted by the wrong things.

I will take as a given that, for most people, somewhere between six and seven billion of them, the perfect job is the one that takes the least time.

If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?

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.

Make your peace with the fact that saying 'no' often requires trading popularity for respect." —Greg McKeown, Essentialism

people, even good people, will unknowingly abuse your time to the extent that you let them. Set good rules for all involved to minimize back-and-forth and meaningless communication.

Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.

There are two synergistic approaches for increasing productivity that are inversions of each other: 1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20). 2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson's Law). The best solution is to use both together: Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.

If you can't define it or act upon it, forget it.

Less Is Not Laziness Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.

The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials." —Lin Yutang

1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20). 2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson's Law).

Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it's important to you and you want to do it "eventually," just do it and correct course along the way.

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things." –Steve Jobs

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.

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.

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.

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

Oftentimes, in order to do the big things, you have to let the small bad things happen.

People are poor judges of importance and inflate minutiae to fill time and feel important.

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.

can't give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.