“Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is eliminate the task. Downsize. The rooms you don’t have, don’t need to be cleaned. Donate. The items you don’t own, don’t need to be organized. Delete. The projects you don’t take on, don’t need to be finished. Is this a problem that needs to be solved? Or is it a problem that can be eliminated all together?”
James Clear, Blog
“Accomplished people have an obsession with completing tasks. Once a project falls into their horizon, they crave, almost compulsively, to finish it. […] It’s this constant stream of finishing that begins, over time, to unlock more and more interesting opportunities and eventually leads to their big scores.”
Cal Newport
“I started dividing my to-do list into 1) things I have to do, 2) things I want to do, and 3) things other people want me to do. Life changing! I often don’t get to #3 and I finally realized… this is what it means to have boundaries.”
Jenée Desmond-Harris, Twitter
“The mind and the body are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate out their effects on us. Feeling energized influences our mood, which influences our work in very direct ways. And feeling confused or disorganized in our work can have a terrible effect on us physically as well.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 97)
“Slowing down enables you to act in a high quality way. Kind rather than curt. Polished rather than sloppy. It’s hard to be thoughtful when you’re in a rush.”
James Clear, Blog
“If you’re feeling creative, do the errands tomorrow. If you’re fit and healthy, take a day to go surfing. When inspiration strikes, write it down. The calendar belongs to everyone else. Their schedule isn’t your schedule unless it helps you get where you’re going.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“Anything that must yet be done, virtue can do with courage and promptness. For anyone would call it a sign of foolishness for one to undertake a task with a lazy and begrudging spirit, or to push the body in one direction and the mind in another, to be torn apart by wildly divergent impulses.”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 259)
“What are the chances that the busiest person you know is actually the most productive? We tend to associate busyness with goodness and believe that spending many hours at work should be rewarded. Instead, evaluate what you are doing, why you are doing it, and where accomplishing it will take you. If you don’t have a good answer, then stop.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 164)
“The time we spend worrying is actually time we’re spending trying to control something that is out of our control. Time invested in something that is within our control is called work. That’s where our most productive focus lies.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 99)
“If you put the jelly on before the peanut butter, the sandwich will fail. And if you try to spread the peanut butter on the plate and then add the bread, it will fail even worse. Like so many things, the order is not optional. And yet, we often do the least-scary or easiest parts first, regardless of what the order of operations tells us.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“There’s no one way—there’s too much drivel about this subject. You’re who you are, not Fitzgerald or Thomas Wolfe. You write by sitting down and writing. There’s no particular time or place—you suit yourself, your nature. How one works, assuming he’s disciplined, doesn’t matter. If he or she is not disciplined, no sympathetic magic will help. The trick is to make time—not steal it—and produce the fiction. If the stories come, you get them written, you’re on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you.”
Bernard Malamud, via Daily Rituals (Page 233)
“I’ve never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think that the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again.”
John Updike, via Daily Rituals (Page 195) | Read Matt’s Blog on this quote ➜
“A modern stoic knows that the surest way to discipline passion is to discipline time: decide what you want or ought to do during the day, then always do it at exactly the same moment every day, and passion will give you no trouble.”
W. H. Auden, via Daily Rituals (Page 3)
“If someone asks you how to write your name, would you bark out each letter? And if they get angry, would you then return the anger? Wouldn’t you rather gently spell out each letter for them? So then, remember in life that your duties are the sum of individual acts. Pay attention to each of these as you do your duty… just methodically complete your task.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 56)
Hard Work Doesn’t Always Pay Off
“Work hard,
and you will earn good rewards.
Work smart,
and you will earn great rewards.
Work hard and work smart,
and you will earn extraordinary rewards.”
Matshona Dhliwayo
Beyond the Quote (Day 398)
I remember learning this lesson in college when, after giving a big presentation, I found out a classmate of mine—who did far less work than me—got a better grade than me. I vaguely remember the details of the project, but the feelings are as fresh as they were 10 years ago. I was heated. I felt cheated. I kept replaying the thought that I did 10x the work and ending up with nothing to show for it. And I didn’t want to just let all of my hard work go to waste—I wanted to prove that those hours counted for something!
Read More »Hard Work Doesn’t Always Pay OffTaking Care of Yourself IS Productive
“How can you think of yourself as a caring person if you don’t take care of yourself? If you don’t take care of yourself, you’ll stop thinking of yourself as someone who has a lot to give. Instead you’ll feel deprived. And you’ll hate your life. How can you give others joy if you can’t give yourself joy?”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 9)
Beyond the Quote (Day 392)
Isn’t it strange to think how so many of us act like self-care isn’t a productive use of time? Like sleeping for 8 hours in a night is somehow costly? Or skipping a workout to do more office work is somehow admirable? Or spending time to take a break and recover is somehow wasteful? When in reality, it’s often the opposite that is the case.
Read More »Taking Care of Yourself IS Productive
