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    “Plans made swiftly and intuitively are likely to have flaws. Plans made carefully and comprehensively are sure to.”

    Robert Grudin, Time And The Art Of Living (Page 102)

      “The best we can do, I think, is not to pick nits but rather to consult broader purposes, taking time off every few days to review our position in life, evaluating the present in terms of past and future, memories and plans, and determining the ways in which recent and present choices may suggest larger patterns. In so doing, we rise temporarily above the ordinary flow of time and reacquaint ourselves with the larger pattern of forces which is our enduring identity.”

      Robert Grudin, Time And The Art Of Living (Page 99)

        “In planning ahead we should remember that usable time is at best 80 to 85 percent of total time. Long unbroken periods contain more usable time than do short periods totaling the same length.”

        Robert Grudin, Time And The Art Of Living (Page 3)

          “Fast drivers can see no further than slow drivers, but they must look further down the road to time their reactions safely. Similarly, people with great projects afoot habitually look further and more clearly into the future than people who are mired in day-to-day concerns. these former control the future because by necessity they must project themselves into it; and the upshot is that, like ambitious settlers, they stake out larger plots and homesteads of time than the rest of us. They do not easily grow sad or old; they are seldom intimidated by the alarms and confusions of the present because they have something greater of their own, some sense of their large and coherent motion in time, to compare the present with.”

          Robert Grudin, Time And The Art Of Living (Page 2)

            “The tragedy is that most people think that they already have goals. But what they really have are hopes and wishes. However, hope is not a strategy for success, and a wish has been defined as a ‘goal with no energy behind it.’ Goals that are not written down and developed into plans are like bullets without powder in the cartridge. People with unwritten goals go through life shooting blanks. Because they think they already have goals, they never engage in the hard, disciplined effort of goal-setting—and this is the master skill of success.”

            Brian Tracy, via No Excuses! (Page 65)

              “If you stay too long in the imagination phase, what you create will tend to be grandiose and detached from reality. If you only listen to feedback and try to make the work a complete reflection of what others tell you or want, the work will be conventional and flat. By maintaining a continual dialogue between reality (feedback) and your imagination, you will create something practical and powerful.”

              Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 401)

                “You have a plan. A time-traveller from 2030 appears and tells you your plan failed. Which part of your plan do you think is the one that fails? Fix that part.”

                Ideopunk, LessWrong

                  “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

                  Ben Franklin, via The Daily Stoic (Page 242)

                    “Whenever you are stuck searching for the optimal plan, remember: Getting started changes everything.”

                    James Clear, Blog

                      “Psychoanalysts are fond of pointing out that the past is alive in the present. But the future is alive in the present too. The future is not some place we’re going to, but an idea in our mind now. It is something we’re creating, that in turn creates us. The future is a fantasy that shapes our present.”

                      Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life (Page 157)

                        “Great people have a vision of their lives that they practice emulating each and every day. They go to work on their lives, not just in their lives. Their lives are spent living out the vision they have of their future, in the present. They compare what they’ve done with what they intended to do. And where there’s a disparity between the two, they don’t wait very long to make up the difference.”

                        Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 139)

                          “The key is to plan, envision, and articulate what you see in the future both for yourself and for your employees. Because if you don’t articulate it—I mean, write it down, clearly, so others can understand it—you don’t own it! And do you know that in all the years I’ve been doing this work with small business owners, out of the thousands upon thousands we’ve met, there have only been a few who had any plan at all! Nothing written, nothing committed to paper, nothing concrete at all.”

                          Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 65)

                          Isaac Pitman Quote on Arranging Your Mind By Arranging Your Time

                            “Well arranged time is the surest mark of a well arranged mind.”

                            Sir Isaac Pitman

                            Beyond the Quote (137/365)

                            Have you ever laid into bed at the end of a day and wondered… what just happened? Like the whole day felt like a big blur? And even after a few minutes of reflection, you still can’t quite get it all straight? This is a common effect of living a reactive and unplanned lifestyle. If you go into the day with a blurry vision of what you need to do, then, it follows that you’ll come out on the other side with a blurry memory of what you did.

                            Read More »Isaac Pitman Quote on Arranging Your Mind By Arranging Your Time