Productivity Quotes

Those who every morning plan the transactions of the day and follow out that plan carry a thread that will guide them through the labyrinth of the most busy life. The orderly arrangement of their time is like a ray of light which darts itself through all their occupations. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidents, chaos will soon reign.

You can cut down a tree with a hammer, but it takes about 30 days. If you trade the hammer for an ax, you can cut it down in about 30 minutes. The difference between 30 days and 30 minutes is skills.

Where focus goes, energy flows.

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who want to get things done, and those who don't want to make mistakes.

Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!

Stop doing things that waste time. Don't replace time with your family or things that you need to do. I needed to put together two fantasy teams this weekend because that's something I enjoy, but I did stop playing Nintendo Wii for hours on end.

I never knew a man who was good at making excuses who was good at anything else.

Good intentions never change anything. They only become a deeper and deeper rut.

When a resource is scarce, you increase its yield.

Many companies have long contended that stress in the home causes productivity loss in the market place.. and it does. But research now reveals that stress on the job causes stress at home. In other words, they feed off each other

You must all know half a dozen people at least who are no use in this world, who are more trouble than they are worth. Just put them there and say Sir, or Madam, now will you be kind enough to justify your existence? If you can't justify your existence, if you're not pulling your weight in the social boat, if you're not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then, clearly, we cannot use the organizations of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us and it can't be of very much use to yourself.

Many people are busy trying to find better ways of doing things that should not have to be done at all. There is no progress in merely finding a better way to do a useless thing.

Learn how to separate the majors and the minors. A lot of people don't do well simply because they major in minor things.

Never hide behind busy work. It takes just as much energy to fail as it does to succeed.

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

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.

It is in quiet that our best ideas occur to us. Don't make the mistake of believing that by a frantic kind of dashing around you are being your most effective and efficient self. Don't assume that you are wasting time when you take time out for thought.

The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.

If you can focus the energy into something valuable, put that into work ethic.

Generally, we have translated greater output in the few hours of work per week over the last century. And that's a good trend of the future. But we do have to have a system that, as output of goods and services keeps increasing per capita, that it takes care of the people who are willing to work and really are not getting by very well with a family on a 40-hour week.

Labor, but slight not meditation; meditate, but slight not labor.

We can no longer afford to spend major time on minor things than spend minor time on major things.

From his neck down a man is worth a couple of dollars a day, from his neck up he is worth anything that his brain can produce.

The day is of infinite length for him who knows how to appreciate and use it.

The good husband finds method as efficient in the packing of fire-wood in a shed, or in the harvesting of fruits in the cellar, as in Peninsular campaigns or the files of the Department of State.

Time is money, be a better you.

The best compensation for doing things is the ability to do more.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

It's wonderful what we can do if we're always doing.

If you try to do too much, you will not achieve anything.

I think I became more productive through not having children. I never really had the desire to have them. My husband didn't want them either, so it worked out well.

Delegate - work smarter not harder; do what you do best and drop the rest; get control of your calendar; do what you love because it will give you energy; work with people you like so your energy isn't depleted.

Quit counting time and start making time count

A primary task of management in the developed countries in the decades ahead will be to make knowledge productive.

It is always a sign of an unproductive time when it concerns itself with petty and technical aspects [in philology], and likewiseit is a sign of an unproductive person to pursue such trifles.

Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.

It's amazing how many things busy people are doing that never will be missed.

Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have.

No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small percentage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive.

The realization of the self is only possible if one is productive, if one can give birth to one's own potentialities.

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.'

Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.

Don't just consume things, create things

Video games are a waste of time for men with nothing else to do. Real brains don't do that.

[T]hroughout the ages to be educated meant to be unproductive.... our word "school" - and its equivalent in all European languages - derives from a Greek word meaning "leisure.

I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now.

It makes no odds where a man goes or stays, if he is only about his business.

Take the best action toward your most important goal right now.

If something can be done 80% as well by someone else, delegate!

The rule should be to minimize the need for people to get together to accomplish anything.

Do whatever you have to do as quickly as you can, so you can do whatever you WANT to do, for as long as you can.

You have to be very productive in order to become excellent. You have to go through a poor period and a mediocre period, and then you move into your excellent period. It may be very well be that some of you have done quite a bit of writing already. You maybe ready to move into your good period and your excellent period. But you shouldn't be surprised if it becomes a very long process.

If you want to improve how you manage time - stop doing what doesn't need to be done!

Time well spent results in more money to spend, more money to save, and more time to vacation.

Leaders should get out of their comfort zone but stay in their strength zone. When their work lies within their natural gifting and strengths, leaders experience the greatest return in productivity and contentment. Life is too short to live in the comfort zone, where growing and accomplishing and achieving your potential takes a back seat. I suggest you refocus if the comfort zone is your leadership priority.

Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day.

The leading rule for a man of every calling is diligence; never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.

A great lathe operator commands several times the wage of an average lathe operator, but a great writer of software code is worth 10,000 times the price of an average software writer.