Quotes About Prioritization

Some people put more into their cars than they put into their relationships.

If a building is falling on you, you don't concern yourself with the horn of an approaching car. You deal with the most immediate peril first. That's survival.

I remember things that happened sixty years ago, but if you ask me where I left my car keys five minutes ago, that's sometimes a problem.

I've made movies that cost less than one car chase.

Don't use your advance to buy an antique sports car, diamonds by the yard, or a bottle of wine from Thomas Jefferson's cellar instead of investing in your book.

There are some for whom the good of mankind is their primary concern, and others who basically put their own considerations before everyone else. I was among the latter.

There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.

Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. Peter Drucker

Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.

Working on the right things is what makes knowledge work effective.

If there is any one "secret" of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.

Is this still worth doing?" And if it isn't, he gets rid of it so as to be able to concentrate on the few tasks that, if done with excellence, will really make a difference in the results of his own job and in the performance of his organization.

To do the most good requires saying no to pressures to stray, and the discipline to stop doing what does not fit.

2. Don't diversify, don't splinter, don't try to do too many things at once. This is, of course, the corollary to the 'do': be focused!

Executives are not paid for doing things they like to do. They are paid for getting the right things done—most of all in their specific task, the making of effective decisions.

If the executive lets the flow of events determine what he does, what he works on, and what he takes seriously, he will fritter himself away "operating.

This is the "secret" of those people who "do so many things" and apparently so many difficult things. They do only one at a time. As a result, they need much less time in the end than the rest of us.

De minimis non curat praetor (The magistrate does not consider trifles) said the Roman law almost two thousand years ago—but many decision-makers still need to learn it.

Anyone who knows Western businesses, government agencies, or educational institutions knows that their managers make far too many small decisions as a rule. And nothing causes as much trouble in an organization as a lot of small decisions.

expected to get the right things done.

And productivity for the knowledge worker means the ability to get the right things done. It means effectiveness.

Effectiveness as an executive demands doing certain—and fairly simple—things.

Effective executives know where their time goes.