Lock in on What Matters Most Quotes
Busy is not the same as productive. The man who finds the few actions that drive most of his results, and cuts the rest, multiplies every hour he works. This Productivity path holds history's sharpest quotes on priorities and time. Scroll through and put them to work.
Choose a Pillar of Greatness
Pick a Type of Insight
“You've got to keep control of your time, and you can't unless you say no”
“The question I ask myself almost every day is, 'Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?'”
“Smart people focus on the right things”
“Focus on the things that don't change”
“Focus on essentials and try not to get distracted by things that don't add value”
“He who is everywhere is nowhere.”
“To do two things at once is to do neither.”
“Concentration is my motto — first honesty, then industry, then concentration.”
“Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.”
“If you win on the big point, you don't sweat the minor ones.”
“Don't major in the minors”
“Success is focusing the full power of all you are on what you have a burning desire to achieve.”
“One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all.”
“Say no to anything that is not a high-value use of your time and your life.”
“When you feel like you're not productive, it's not necessarily because you're lazy or because you have bad habits, it's because you're not working on the right projects.”
“Take a simple idea and take it seriously.”
“The man who chases two rabbits catches neither.”
“When you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right things a chance to catch you.”
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
“When you're a one man show, you have to focus on the most important thing to get done today.”
“If it's important, schedule it.”
“Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not.”
“If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will.”
“Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it's about how to get the right things done.”
“Productivity is not about how much you do, it's about how much you accomplish.”
“In a startup, things are always broken. The key is not to fix everything at once but to prioritize what moves the business forward.”
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
“What's the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
“Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you'll have more time, and more tranquility.”
“Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.”
“The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
“Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.”
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
“Creativity loves constraints.”
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything”
“You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically—to say 'no' to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside.”
“Being busy is a form of laziness - lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”
“Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.”
“Never mistake activity for achievement.”
“If you're on time, you're late. If you're early, you're on time.”
“Punctuality is the politeness of kings.”
“Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren't adding value.”
“Set and enforce an aspirational personal hourly rate. If fixing a problem will save less than your hourly rate, ignore it. If outsourcing a task will cost less than your hourly rate, outsource it.”
“If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate.”
“I would rather have one percent of the efforts of a hundred men than one hundred percent of my own efforts.”
“You can delegate authority, but you cannot delegate responsibility.”
“Effective executives do not start with their tasks. They start with their time.”
“Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”
“Standing in the middle of the road is dangerous; you get knocked down by traffic from both sides.”
“If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.”
