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Productivity is about being effective in achieving specified results

• Productivity:  Having the power of producing; generative; creative.  Dictionary.com
• Productivity:  Producing readily or abundantly; fertile. Dictionary.com
• Productivity:  Doing or achieving a lot: working hard and getting good results. Merriam Webster
• Productivity:  Producing or able to produce something especially in large amounts. Merriam Webster
• Productivity:  Yielding favorable or useful results; constructive. American Heritage Dictionary
• Productivity:  Effective in achieving specified results; originative. Oxford Dictionary
• Effectiveness, Efficiency,  Getting Things Done,  Get organised

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Productivity is about getting things done

• You must be the kind of man who can get things done. Ayn Rand
• You can’t just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream; you’ve got to get out there and make it happen for yourself. Diana Ross
• Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind. Scott Fitzgerald
• Life just doesn’t hand you things. You have to get out there and make things happen. That’s the exciting part. Emeril Lagasse
• If you don’t make things happen then things will happen to you. Robert Collier
• True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new. Antoine de Saint- Exupery
• Getting Things Done

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Productivity is about efficiency

• Productivity is the ratio of output to inputs in production; it is a measure of the efficiency of production. Wikipedia
• Avoid fragmentation: Find your focus and seek simplicity. Purposeful living calls for elegant efficiency and economy of effort—expanding the minimum time and energy necessary to achieve desired goals. Dan Millman
• My goal is to do the most with the least—get the maximum output with the minimum input. Jarod Kintz
• The ultimate goal of a more effective and efficient life is to provide you with enough time to enjoy some of it. Michael Leboeuf
• Obviously, the highest type of efficiency is that which can utilize existing material to the best advantage. Jawaharlal Nehru
• The combination of hard work and smart work is efficient work. Robert Half
• Efficiency is doing better what is already being done. Peter Drucker
• Efficiency

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Productivity is about managing time effectively …

• Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else. Peter F. Drucker
• Time is the scarcest resource; and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed. Peter F. Drucker
• The key is in not spending time, but in investing it. Stephen Covey
• The ability to concentrate and to use time well is everything. Lee Iacocca
• Constantly ask, “Is this the highest and best use of my time?” Brian Tracy
• The ultimate goal of a more effective and efficient life is to provide you with enough time to enjoy some of it. Michael LeBoeuf
• I recommend you take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves. Lord Chesterfield
• We will always have time enough, if we will but use it aright. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it. Charles Buxton
• All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. R.R. Tolkien
• This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Today, be aware of how you are spending your 1,440 beautiful moments and spend them wisely.
• We always have time enough, if we will but use it rightJohann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Time management,  Time

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… squeezing the maximum achievement from the time available

• A mastery of time allows you to squeeze the maximum possible achievement in the direction of your dreams out of every hour, every day – without going crazy. Tony Robbins
• Time is the most precious element of human existence. The successful person knows how to put energy into time and how to draw success from time. Denis Waitley 
• Achievement

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Productivity is about managing yourself effectively

• Time management” is really a misnomer – the challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves. Stephen Covey
• Highly effective people do not really manage time—they manage themselves. Stephen Covey
• Managing your time really means managing yourself. If your time is out of control, it means you are out of control. Marrill Douglass
• Time management is really life management, personal management, management of yourself. Brian Tracy
• Stop managing your time. Start managing your focus. Robin Sharma
• Time management is really life management, personal management, management of yourself. People who value themselves highly allocate their time carefully. They give their time usage a lot of thought. When you love your life, you love every minute of it. You are very careful about misusing or wasting any of the precious minutes and hours of each day. Brian Tracy
• Management

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In any endeavour, begin with the end in mind

• Always start every endeavour with a clear sense of purpose. Stephen Covey
• Begin with the end in mind. Shape your future by creating a mental vision and purpose for any project, large or small. Stephen Covey
• Discovering what you really want saves you endless confusion and wasted energy. Stuart Wilde
• Half of the secret to achieving clarity in any situation is asking, “What are we trying to do here?” David Allen
• Have you envisioned wild success lately? David Allen
• Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days. Zig Ziglar
• The more clearly we know what we want, the more obvious it will be what we should do. Tom Morris
• The sooner you have a clear vision of what you want to be and the contributions you want to make, the more effective you’ll be in your life. Stephen Covey
• To begin with the end in mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen. Stephen Covey
• Tremendous productivity can be generated, once a vision has been set, by reverse- engineering it back to short- term goals and objectives, for which you can then create projects that themselves trigger next actions. David Allen
• We are more in need of a destination and less in need of a roadmap. Stephen Covey
• When you see a thing clearly in your mind, your creative “success mechanism” within you takes over and does the job much better than you could do it by conscious effort or “willpower.” Maxwell Maltz
• You must form a clear and definite mental picture of what you want. Wallace D. Wattles
• Begin with the end in mind

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Set goals

• Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets. Nido Qubein
• When you clearly articulate your intention or goal in writing and speech, your frontal lobes can more efficiently direct your motor cortex to carry out your desire as you actively engage with others in the world. It’s an extraordinary process: You begin with a goal-oriented thought, and the more you focus on it, the more your brain begins to plot out strategies to carry that thought into the world. Andrew Newberg
• If you are bored with life, if you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things—you don’t have enough goals. Lou Holtz
• Goals provide the energy source that powers our lives. One of the best ways we can get the most from the energy we have is to focus it. That is what goals can do for us; concentrate our energy. Denis Waitley
• An average person with average talent, ambition and education, can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society, if that person has clear, focused goals. Brian Tracy
• Goal setting

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Harness the power of focus

• By concentrating our efforts upon a few major goals, our efficiency soars, our projects are completed, we are going somewhere. Michael Korda
• Concentration is the key to economic results. No other principle of effectiveness is violated as constantly today as the basic principle of concentration. Peter F. Drucker
• Focusing is the great secret of power. If you want to use your full amount of focus, you must close down all other thought and direct your power of generating mental steam toward one outcome. Stephen Richards
• My favorite organizing principle for high productivity is single handling, in which you concentrate single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, all day long. Once you have programmed this work habit into yourself, you’ll be amazed at how much you get done. Brian Tracy
• Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all of your energies on a limited set of targets. Nido Qubein
• The irony is that the real power comes when you narrow it. D. Meier
• The smaller the area of focus, the greater the mind’s clarity and power. Brian Johnson
• You are more likely to acquire power by narrowing your focus and applying your energies, like the sun’s rays, to a limited range of activities in a small number of domains. Jeffrey Pfeffer
• Focus

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Focus your time and effort on what is important …

• As you begin to think more in terms of importance, you begin to see time differently. Stephen Covey
• If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got. Lee Iacocca
• How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and, keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and do what really matters most. Stephen Covey
• The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Stephen Covey
• Devote 100% of your time to the critical issue. Robert Townsend
• Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter leastJohann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Most people fail in life because they major in minor things. Tony Robbins

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… by prioritising ruthlessly

• Prioritize ruthlessly. The secret to booking your time effectively boils down to knowing what’s important and what can wait. Jeff Wuorio
• I learned that we can do anything, but we can’t do everything, at least not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is everything. Dan Millman
• Most people say their main fault is a lack of discipline. On deeper thought, I believe that is not the case. The basic problem is that their priorities have not become deeply planted in their hearts and minds. Stephen Covey
• Set priorities for your goals. A major part of successful living lies in the ability to put first things first. Indeed, the reason most major goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first. Robert J. Mckain
• When your daily activities are in concert with your highest priorities, you have a credible claim to inner peace. Hyrum Smith
• Create a to-do list, prioritize, and refer to it often. Linda Richter
• The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities. Stephen Covey
• Put first things first

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Ruthlessly dump what is not important

• If something is important to you, attend to it immediately, and regularly. If something is not really important to you, that’s great also – just scratch it off your to-do list forever, and never worry about it again.  Choose how you invest your time, and honor your choices.  Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• Nuke it! The most efficient way to get through a task is to delete it. If it doesn’t need to be done, get it off your to do list. Steve Pavlina
• Find what matters most to you and eliminate as much of the rest as possible. Leo Babauta
• When things aren’t adding up in your life, start subtracting.
• It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential. Bruce Lee
• Now and then it’s good to list all the things you regularly do for which there was once a good reason. Robert Brault
• What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do. Aristotle
• It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich. Henry Ward Beecher
• We began to realise that it’s as important to figure out what you’re not going to do as it is to know what you are going to do. Michael Dell
• Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do. Steve Jobs
• The whole point of getting things done is knowing what to leave undone. Oswald Chambers
• In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich. Henry Ward Beecher
• The most efficient way to get through a task is to delete it. If it doesn’t need to be done, get it off your to do list.  Steve Pavlina
• Dump what is not important

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Don’t be scared to say “no”

• You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.” Stephen Covey
• A ‘No’ uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble. Mahatma Gandhi
• And saying “no” gets easier with practice, especially as you gain confidence that sticking to the essential is something that will have great benefits to you in the long term. Leo Babauta
• Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough. Josh Billings
• Don’t spread yourself too thin. Learn to say no politely and quickly. Jackson Brown Jr.
• Sometimes saying ‘no’ to one thing means leaving room for ‘yes’ in other areas. Christine Louise Hohlbaum
• Learn to say No

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Apply the 80/20 Principle to your life

• The Pareto principle is the 80-20 rule, which states that 80% of the value of a task comes from 20% of the effort. Focus your energy on that critical 20%, and don’t overengineer the non-critical 80%.  Steve Pavlina
• The 80/20 way enables anyone to get extraordinary results without extra-ordinary effort. A small amount of our energy leads to most great things in our lives. A small portion of our time leads to most of our happiness and fulfillment. Richard Koch
• It is always possible to improve our lives, not by a small amount, but by a large amount. The way to make the improvement: “What will give me a much better result for much less energy?” Richard Koch
• Pareto’s Law can be summarized as follows: 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs. Timothy Ferriss
• The 80/20 Principle, like the truth, can make you free. You can work less. At the same time, you can earn more and enjoy more. The only price is that you need to do some serious 80/20 thinking. Richard Koch
• Calm down, work less and target a limited number of very valuable goals where the 80/20 Principle will work for us. Richard Koch
• Identify the 20 percent of your tasks that give you 80 percent of your results. Do more of those. Stever Robbins
• Define a to-do list and define a not-to-do list. In general terms, there are but two questions: What 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness? What 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcome and happiness? Timothy Ferriss
• Living the 80 – 20 way.  (Richard Koch)

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Never confuse being busy with being productive

• It is not enough to be busy… The question is: what are we busy about? Henry David Thoreau
• It is possible to be busy – very busy – without being very effective. Stephen Covey
• It is worse to busy yourself with the trivial than to do nothing. Baltasar Gracian
• It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about? Henry David Thoreau
• Life seems nothing more than a quick succession of busy nothings. From the movie Mansfield Park
• Love of bustle is not industry. Seneca
• Most people focus on being busy rather than being productive at work. Timothy Ferris
• Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference.  Being busy is often a form of mental laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.  Tim Ferris
• Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight. Thomas Carlyle
• Stop allowing your day-to-day life to be clouded by busy nothingness. Steve Maraboli
• The essential question is not, “How busy are you?’ but ‘What are you busy at?’ ‘Are you doing what fulfills you? Oprah Winfrey
• Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another- and ourselves. Jack Kornfield
• Busyness

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

• Doing more things faster is no substitute for doing the right things. Stephen Covey
• Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things. Peter Drucker
• If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster. Stephen Covey
• It’s more important to do the right thing than to do things right. Peter Drucker
• It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the business of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall. Stephen Covey
• Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all. Peter Drucker
• Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter. Francis Chan
• Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction. Kenichi Ohmae
• There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. Peter Drucker
• There’s no point in masterfully doing the wrong things. Robin Sharma
• What is the use of running when we are on the wrong road? Bavarian proverb
• Working on the right thing is more important than working hard. Caterina Fake
• Efficiency

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Break your larger tasks into smaller actions …

• A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules. Anthony Trollope
• Break complex projects into smaller, well-defined tasks. Focus on completing just one of those tasks.  Steve Pavlina
• Break things down into small tasks that can be accomplished in an hour or less – even better would be twenty to thirty minutes, or even ten to fifteen minutes. The smaller, the better, because then we’re more likely to actually get them done. Leo Babauta
• Don’t be a time manager, be a priority manager. Cut your major goals into bite-sized pieces. Each small priority or requirement on the way to ultimate goal become a mini goal in itself. Denis Waitley
• Great acts are made up of small deeds. Lao Tzu
• Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs. Henry Ford
• Small tasks are always better than large ones. Leo Babauta
• Start with just one small task from the project, instead of trying to tackle everything at once. Leo Babauta
• The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting with the first one. Mark Twain
• When defining steps, break them into the smallest pieces or actions. Take a defined action and then see if you can make smaller actions out of this one action step.  This will help in successful completion.  Phyllis Reardon
• When you’re feeling overwhelmed by a large project or goal that you need to tackle, make your action steps smaller and easier. One clue that will let you know that you need to break your goal down into smaller chunks is that you find yourself procrastinating. Procrastination is often caused by the feeling of being overwhelmed.  Marelisa Fabrega
• You don’t actually do a project; you can only do action steps related to it. When enough of the right action steps have been taken, some situation will have been created that matches your initial picture of the outcome closely enough that you can call it “done.” David Allen
• Harness the power of small, consistent action steps

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… then harness the power of small, consistent steps

• Great acts are made up of small deeds. Lao Tzu
• Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. Vincent van Gogh
• Confront the difficult while it is still easy; accomplish the great task by a series of small acts. Lao Tzu
• Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. Robert Collier
• In my experience, the greatest successes don’t come from grandiose scenarios of good intentions engendered by temporarily pumped-up motivation. Rather, the most lasting and significant positive effects result from small things, done consistently, in strategic places. David Allen
• What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• You can dream and you can wonder, but nothing happens without taking action consistently. You don’t have to be perfect. Learn as much as you need to know the next step and take action! Henri Junttila
• When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself. Isak Dinesen
• A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules. Anthony Trollope
• The power of small steps

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Focus on what you’re doing in the present moment …

• Banish the future. Live only for the hour and its allotted work. Think not of the amount to be accomplished, the difficulties to be overcome, or the end to be attained, but set earnestly at the little task at your elbow, letting that be sufficient for the day. William Osler
• Practice being present. You can practice being in the moment at any time during the day. Simply focus on what you’re doing right now, not on the past or the future. Leo Babauta
• Focus on the present, to reduce anxiety and stress. Leo Babauta
• When we focus too much on all there is to do instead of simply doing what we can in this moment, we will feel the stress associated with such thinking. Richard Carlson
• Life is denied by lack of attention, whether it be cleaning windows or trying to write a masterpiece. Nadia Boulanger
• There is one thing we can do, and the happiest people are those who can do it to the limit of their ability. We can be completely present. We can be all here. We can give all our attention to the opportunity before us. Mark Van Doren
• If you pay attention at every moment, you form a new relationship to time. In some magical way, by slowing down, you become more efficient, productive, and energetic, focusing without distraction directly on the task in front of you. Not only do you become immersed in the moment, you become that moment. Michael Ray
• When walking, walk. When eating, eat. Zen Proverb
• Live in the present,  Focus

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… doing just one task at a time

• Concentrate all your thoughts on the task at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. Alexander Graham Bell
• You live in a world of choices. At any moment in time, you must decide what to focus on and how to use your time. Scott Belsky
• Do one task at a time, without distractions. Don’t multitask, and don’t let yourself get interrupted. Single tasking and and focus are are the keys to execution. Leo Babauta
• Immerse yourself in the task. Just start on the task and focus completely on it. Forget about everything else, and let the world melt away. Get excited about the task and have fun. Leo Babauta
• In a simple life in which you only do what’s in front of you, there can be no overwhelm, ever.
• Learn to be in the moment, focusing on one task at a time, and immersing yourself completely in that task. Leo Babauta
• My favorite organizing principle for high productivity is single handling, in which you concentrate single- mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, all day long. Once you have programmed this work habit into yourself, you’ll be amazed at how much you get done. Brian Tracy
• One grain of sand at a time. One task at a time. Dale Carnegie
• One thing at a time. Most important thing first. Start now. Skellie
• The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once. Samuel Smiles

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Multi-tasking may severely reduce productivity

• I used to be a big multi-tasker, but I realized that it didn’t work for me, and it probably doesn’t for you either. Pick one thing, eliminate distractions, and focus. It’s the only way to unleash your inner genius. Henri Junttila
• Research suggests multitasking may severely reduce productivity, which means you’re never quite finished with anything and thus are unable to fully unwind. Sean O’Leary

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Immerse yourself totally in what you do and put your heart into it

• This is the real secret of life; to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realise it is play. Alan Watts
• When you are completely absorbed or caught up in something, you become oblivious to things around you, or to the passage of time. It is this absorption in what you are doing that frees your unconscious and releases your creative imagination. Rollo May
• Whenever your mind is totally absorbed in whatever activities you are performing, your mind will remain calm and content. Chin- Ning Chu
• The secret of success is to be total. If you are going to do something, really do it. Do not second- guess yourself, let guilt undermine your joy, or wonder if you should be somewhere else. Either do it with a whole heart or do not do it. Be total. Alan Cohen
• If anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart. Buddha
• Put you heart, mind, intellect and soul even into your smallest acts. This is the secret of success. Swami Sivananda
• When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put you whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• When it becomes necessary to do a thing, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it. Thomas Paine
• Do whatever you do intensely. Robert Henri
• I hate to see things done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly, if it be wrong leave it undone. Bernard Gilp
• I can’t imagine a person becoming a success who doesn’t give this game of life everything he’s got. Walter Cronkite
• Immerse yourself in what you do

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Set aside uninterrupted periods of time to work …

• To work effectively you need uninterrupted blocks of time in which you can complete meaningful work. When you know for certain that you won’t be interrupted, your productivity is much, much higher. When you sit down to work on a particularly intense task, dedicate blocks of time to the task during which you will not do anything else. I’ve found that a minimum of 90 minutes is ideal for a single block. Steve Pavlina
• Block out periods of time where you commit to doing one thing at a time. Be present in what you are doing. Concentrate. Be in the moment. Even the mundane can become enjoyable. And you’ll be amazed how quickly and efficiently you’ll get things done. Richard Carlson
• During one of these sacred time blocks, do nothing but the activity that’s right in front of you. Don’t check email or online forums or do web surfing. Steve Pavlina
• Focus

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… working in concentrated bursts

• Most people work best in 60 to 90 minute blocks of time, followed by 5-10 minute breaks. Sean Phillips
• Do something that is relaxing and lets your brain rest, such as taking a quick 5 minute nap, going for a short walk, etc. Sean Phillips
• Every now and then, go away and have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgement will be surer. Leonardo da Vinci
• There is a rhythm in our bodies that operates in 90-minute intervals. That rhythm is the ultradian rhythm, which moves between high arousal and fatigue.  If you’re working over a period of 90 minutes, there are all kinds of indicators in your physiology of fatigue; so what your body is really saying to you is, ‘Give me a break!  Refuel me!’  Tony Schwartz

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Eliminate all distractions

• Eliminating all distractions for a set time while you work is one of the most effective ways to get things done. So, lock your door, put a sign up, turn off your phone, close your email application, disconnect your internet connection, etc.  You can’t remain in hiding forever, but you can be twice as productive while you are.  Marc and Angel Chernoff
• Most people focus on being busy rather than being productive at work. By walling yourself off from distractions, meetings, and even spurious emails at your (office) job, you can usually double your hourly productivity. Then leverage this into a work- from- home arrangement where you continue to do the same job, in only half the hours.  Timothy Ferris
• Take a laptop with no network or WiFi access, and go to a place where you can work flat out without distractions, such as a library, park, coffee house, or your own backyard. Steve Pavlina
• Clearing distractions so you can focus on one single activity is incredibly effective, and breathtakingly joyful. Leo Babauta
• One of the fundamental principles of productivity is that in order to get things done, you’ve got to focus. And that necessary focus requires that you eliminate as many distractions as possible. Leo Babauta

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Set time limits for your tasks

• Set time limits for tasks. There’s no motivation like a deadline. Giving yourself real deadlines is a great way to stay motivated and focused on the task. Given the fact that we human are natural procrastinators, it’s no surprise that we’ll take as long as we’re allowed to finish something. Glen Stansberry
• Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Parkinson’s Law
• Use a timer. I use a timer to limit the amount of time I spend on daily tasks such as email, returning calls, cranking through my to-do lists, etc. This keeps me from getting overly distracted from the truly important tasks I must accomplish during the day. Marc and Angel Chernoff

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Turn off the TV to recapture many usable hours

• Turn off the TV, especially the news, and recapture many usable hours. Steve Pavlina
• Take a twenty-four-hour break from TV news, talk radio, magazines, or websites that profit from your fear. If the world doesn’t end without you watching every private and global crisis unfold (prediction: It won’t), consider cutting out mindless consumption of these media. Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.
• If you’re watching too much television and you know it, you might find it useful to ask this one question: “Which side of the glass do I want to live on?” Steve Chandler
• Learn to turn off the distraction and live your life instead. Turn off the television and don’t read gossip magazines. Remove nonessential physical belongings that are robbing you of time and energy that could be better spent living intentionally. Joshua Becker
• Cancel your TV, your magazines, your casual websurfing, and your newspaper subscriptions. Put yourself on a low information diet where you only take in things that are relevant to your goals. Timothy Ferriss
• Watch less television

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Harness the power of planning

• The payoff from good planning is enormous. It is estimated that each minute spent in planning saves ten minutes in execution. To put it another way, your investment in planning pays you a 1,000 percent return on the time and energy you invest. Brian
• Every minute you spend in planning will save you as many as ten minutes in execution. Brian Tracy
• The primary idea was this: One hour of planning saves three hours of execution. Steve Chandler
• All time management begins with planning. Tom Greening
• Plan your work – work your plan. Lack of a system produces that “I’m swamped” feeling. Norman Vincent Peale
• Planning

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Plan your week ahead

• Have a regular weekly planning session in which you plan ahead the activities of the coming week. This simple process will ensure the things which you consider to be most important are not lost in the daily hustle-bustle of accomplishing the activities which are urgent.  Sephen R. Covey
• So far, you’ve figured out your purpose, values, roles, and first things. How are you going to make sure your first things really are first and stay first? The best way we’ve found is through weekly planning. Stephen Covey
• By planning ahead one week at a time rather than each day, you gain a better perspective of what is urgent and what is important. Stephen Covey
• Commit to investing from twenty to thirty minutes a week in weekly planning. Follow these steps as you plan: Write down your key roles. Select one or two of your highest priorities to focus on this week. Look at the week and schedule your tasks and appointments. Stephen Covey
• Your weekly planning session should follow this sequence: 1. Mission     Roles   3.  Goals   4.  Schedule   Stephen Covey
• Plan your week

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Schedule your most important activities

• If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all. What are the big rocks in your life? A project that you want to accomplish? Time with your loved ones? Your faith, your education, your finances? A cause? Teaching or mentoring others? Remember to put these Big Rocks in first or you’ll never get them in at all. Stephen Covey
• Get the big rocks in. Big rocks are your quadrant 2 tasks – the important but non- urgent tasks. When big rocks are in place, you can easily get the small rocks, gravel, sand and water into the jar. Much easier than if you tried to do it the other way round, isn’t it? Celestine Chua
• You will never “find” time for anything. If you want time, you must make it. Charles Bruxton
• Schedule appointments with yourself and create time blocks for high-priority thoughts, conversations, and actions. Schedule when they will begin and end. Have the discipline to keep these appointments. Joe Mathews
• The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities. Stephen Covey
• Create time zones for specific important activities. The idea is not to fill the entire week with time zones, but to set aside a few specific periods during which you can concentrate on non-urgent and important activities relating to your goals.  Stephen Covey

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Plan your day the night before

• When you plan your day the night before, your subconscious then goes to work on your plans and goals while you are asleep. Very often you will wake up in the morning with ideas and insights that apply to the work of the day. Brian Tracy
• Planning the night before is a great way to really get focused on the next day. “Sleeping” on your tasks and goals for the following day can really help your mind expect what’s going to happen the next day. Glen Stansberry
• Planning your day turns into living your life. Danielle LaPorte

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Set targets for each day

• Never begin the day until it is finished on paper. Jim Rohn
• Without a clear focus, it’s too easy to succumb to distractions. Set targets for each day in advance. Decide what you’ll do; then do it. Steve Pavlina
• If you don’t have daily objectives, you qualify as a dreamer. Zig Ziglar
• Create a to-do list, prioritize, and refer to it often. Linda Richter
• Every morning plan three things you’ll do on that day: one that gives you pleasure, one that will help put you in the state of flow, and one that will give your life meaning. Marelisa Fabrega
• Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don’t start your day until you complete your time plan. The most important time of your day is the time you schedule to schedule time. Joe Mathews
• Either you run the day or the day runs you. Jim Rohn
• One of the secrets of getting more done is to make a TO DO List every day, keep it visible, and use it as a guide to action as you go through the day. Alan Lakein
• Goal setting,  Intention

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Create positive daily habits, routines and rituals

• Your success in life and work will be determined by the kinds of habits that you develop over time. The habit of setting priorities, overcoming procrastination, and getting on with your most important task is a mental and physical skill. As such, this habit is learnable through practice and repetition, over and over again, until it locks into your subsconscious mind and becomes a permanent part of your behaviour. Brian Tracy
• Successful people are simply those with success habits. Brian Tracy
• Over the last couple of years, I’ve discovered the power of having simple routines, especially in the morning and evening. Having these routines can supercharge your day while simultaneously creating a sense of calm and sanity in your life. Leo Babauta
• Instead of thinking about things in terms of one-off accomplishments, start to think about how you can break your goals down into small, consistent daily habits, and then start making those habits a part of your daily routine and just forget about them. Stever Robbins
• The most creative individuals–whether artists, businesspeople, or parents– have rituals that they follow. Paradoxically, the routine frees them up to be creative and spontaneous. Tal Ben-Shahar
• Creating positive rituals is the most powerful means we have found to effectively manage energy in the service of full engagement. Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
• The more scheduled and systematic these rituals became, the more renewal they provided. Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
• The power of rituals is that they insure that we use as little conscious energy as possible where it is not absolutely necessary, leaving us free to strategically focus the energy available to us in creative, enriching ways. Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
• Habit,  Rituals and routines

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Wake up early and start your day strong

• Decide to get up thirty minutes earlier. Do this for a year, and you will add seven and one-half days to your waking world. Jackson Brown Jr.
• It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom. Aristotle
• He that rises late must trot all day. Benjamin Franklin
• Early morning is the most critical time of each day. How you spend the beginning hours of your day sets the stage for the remaining hours. If you purposefully establish a routine for spending your early morning as you want to, you will have taken a giant step toward spending the rest of your life the way you want to. Jack D. Hodge

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Do your most important task first…

• The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day. Henry Ward Beecher
• At the end of your workday, identify the first task you’ll work on the next day, and set out the materials in advance. The next day begin working on that task immediately. Leo Babauta
• First thing in the morning, work on your most important task. Don’t do anything else until this is done. Give yourself a short break, then start on your next most important task. If you can get two to three of these done in the morning, the rest of the day is gravy. Leo Babauta
• By performing the mundane act of sitting down and starting to work, you set in motion a mysterious but infallible sequence of events that will produce inspiration, as surely as if the goddess had synchronized her watch with yours. Steven Pressfield
• Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. “I write only when inspiration strikes,” he replied. “Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp. Steven Pressfield
• The ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life. Brian Tracy
• Start every day with the most important thing you have to do. Save the less important tasks for later. Jackson Brown, Jr
• Put first things first

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… or do your most unpleasant task first

• To defeat procrastination, learn to tackle your most unpleasant task first thing in the morning instead of delaying it until later in the day. This small victory will set the tone for a very productive day. Steve Pavlina
• Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves. Dale Carnegie
• The first rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first. Brian Tracy
• The second rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat a live frog at all, it doesn’t pay to sit and look at it for very long. Brian Tracy
• When you have a number of disagreeable duties to perform, always do the most disagreeable first. Josiah Quincy

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Commit to doing one important thing a day

• Some people spend 90% of their time organizing their time. Some tackle to-do lists peppered with insignificance that stretch a mile long.  And still, there are others who refuse to do anything at all.  As for me, I am committed to doing one thing a day, and that has made all the difference.  What one thing will you do today?  Marc and Angel Chernoff
• Commitment

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Limit how often you check your email

• A common productivity tip is not to check e-mail first thing in the morning, and it’s good advice. By checking e-mail in the morning, you’re allowing e-mail to dictate the rest of your day. Leo Babauta
• Process your e-mail and other in-boxes at regular and predetermined intervals. Do not multitask. Twice a day only. Leo Babauta
• Check e-mail twice per day, once at 12:00 noon or just prior to lunch, and again at 4:00 P.M. 12:00 P.M. and 4:00 P.M. are times that ensure you will have the most responses from previously sent e- mail. Never check e- mail first thing in the morning. Instead, complete your most important task before 11:00 A.M. Timothy Ferriss
• It requires much less energy to maintain an email at zero base than at a thousand base. David Allen
• Emails that need action are sometimes best as their own reminders. Create one folder for any longer- than- two- minute emails that you need to act on. David Allen
• Inbox: A catch basin for everything you don’t want to deal with but are afraid to throw away.

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Batch your smaller tasks

• Aside from your three most important tasks, there are always smaller tasks you need to complete each day. The trick is 1) not to let these smaller tasks take priority over your most important tasks, and 2) to do them in batches as much as possible to save time. Leo Babauta
• Batch similar tasks like phone calls or errands into a single chunk and knock them off in a single session. Steve Pavlina

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Give yourself a fixed time period to make a dent in a task

• Use timeboxing. Give yourself a fixed time period, like 30 minutes, to make a dent in a task.  Don’t worry about how far you get.  Just put in the time.  Steve Pavlina

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Time your tasks

• Time all your tasks for an entire day, preferably a week. Even the act of measuring itself can boost your productivity, not to mention what you learn about your real time usage.

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Create mini-targets

• When you begin a task, identify the target you must reach before you can stop working. For example, when working on a book, you could decide not to get up until you’ve written at least 1000 words.  Hit your target no matter what.  Steve Pavlina

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Productively use waiting time

• Use reading to fill in those odd periods like waiting for an appointment, standing in line, or while the coffee is brewing. Steve Pavlina

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Keep meetings to a minimum

• Provide clear written agendas to meeting participants in advance. This greatly improves meeting focus and efficiency.  You can use it for phone calls too.  Steve Pavlina

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Put aside dedicated time to think and reflect

• Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action. Peter Drucker
• An hour of effective, precise, hard, disciplined, and integrated thinking can be worth a month of hard work. Thinking is the very essence of, and the most difficult thing to do in, business and life. Empire builders spend hour after hour on mental work…while others party. If you’re not consciously aware of putting forth the effort to exert self- guided integrated thinking, if you don’t act beyond your feelings and you take the path of least resistance, then you’re giving in to laziness and no longer control your life. David Kekich
• Time given to thought is the greatest time saver of all. Norman Cousins
• Don’t be a workaholic, be a thinkaholic. P. J. Daniels
• Invest a few moments in thinking. It will pay good interest.
• The more you think, the more time you have. Henry Ford
• Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action. Peter Drucker
• Thinking,  Set aside dedicated time to think

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Do your thinking in the morning

• Anytime before noon is the best for when it comes to focusing because the afternoon (12pm- 4pm) is prime time for distractions according to recent research led by Robert Matchock. David Rock
• Do your deeper thinking work in the morning while you still have the ability to control your attention. David Rock

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Learn to think creatively

• Creative thinking is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learned. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and, where appropriate, profits. Edward de Bono
• Creativity is a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing. Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea. Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone. Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting. Edward de Bono
• Creativity,  Creative expression

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Think of better ways to do things

• There’s a way to do it better – find it. Thomas A. Edison
• The practical man is the adventurer, the investigator, the believer in research, the asker of questions, the man who refuses to believe that perfection has been attained…. It is always safe to assume, not that the old way is wrong, but that there may be a better way. Henry R. Harrower
• No way of looking at things is too sacred to be reconsidered. No way of doing things is beyond improvement. Edward De Bono
• We may have a perfectly adequate way of doing something, but that does not mean there cannot be a better way. So we set out to find an alternative way. This is the basis of any improvement that is not fault correction or problem solving. Edward De Bono

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Harness and manage your energy to maximum effect …

• It is not the degree of ‘willing’ or ‘trying’, but the way in which the energy is directed, that is going to make the ‘willing’ or ‘trying’ effective. M. Alexander
• The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results. Tony Robbins
• There cannot be creation without a lot of energy. Emil Nolde
• Time is the most precious element of human existence. The successful person knows how to put energy into time and how to draw success from time. Denis Waitley
• Energy management

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… by making maximum use of your peak energy times

• Identify your peak cycles of productivity and schedule your most important tasks for those times. Work on minor tasks during your non- peak times. Steve Pavlina
• Do creative work during your internal “prime time.” Your internal prime time is the time of day, according to your body clock, when you are the most alert and productive. Brian Tracy
• Organize your days according to your natural rhythms and cycles. Stever Robbins
• Customize your schedule around your rhythms to keep your energy smooth and flowing all day long. Stever Robbins
• The morning is not stationary or static. The freshness of morning gives us energy. The atmosphere is peaceful and it is easy for the mind to concentrate. Rig Veda
• We are so dominated by the cultural organization of time that we get alienated from our own natural rhythms. Martin Boroson
• By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It’s the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too. Timothy Ferriss

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Harness your natural energy by doing what you love

• People are going to be most creative and productive when they’re doing something they’re really interested in. So having fun isn’t an outrageous idea at all. It’s a very sensible one. John Sculley
• Without passion you don’t have energy, without energy you have nothing. Donald Trump
• Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly. Stephen Covey
• When work, commitment, and pleasure all become one and you reach that deep well where passion lives, nothing is impossible. Nancy Coey
• Passion is the love of turning being into action. It fuels the engine of creation. It changes concepts to experience. Never deny passion, for that is to deny Who You Are, and Who You Truly Want to Be. Neale Donald Walsch
• Never underestimate the power of passion. Eve Sawyer
• Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you. Oprah Winfrey
• Energy and persistence conquer all things. Benjamin Franklin
• Do what you love

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Make time for renewal …

• The mind ought sometimes to be diverted, that it may return the better to thinking. Phaedrus
• Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. Ovid
• Suppose you came upon someone in the woods working to saw down a tree. They are exhausted from working for hours. You suggest they take a break to sharpen the saw. They might reply, ” I didn’t have time to sharpen the saw, I’m busy sawing!” Stephen Covey
• Make time for rest and renewal
• Rest and renewal

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… by taking regular breaks

• Take more breaks. More breaks = More productivity. It may sound wrong, but it’s true. Breaks allow us to re- group our thoughts and focus for the task at hand. They also keep us fresh so that we don’t end up burning out after only a few hours work. Glen Stansberry
• If you really want to focus on something, says Castellanos, the optimum amount of time to spend on it is ninety minutes. Then change tasks. And watch out for interruptions once you’re really concentrating, because it will take you twenty minutes to recover. Winifred Gallagher
• Most people work best in 60 to 90 minute blocks of time, followed by 5-10 minute breaks. Sean Phillips
• No matter how much pressure you feel at work, if you could find ways to relax for at least five minutes every hour, you’d be more productive. Dr Joyce Brothers
• Research shows that naps improve productivity—a growing body of evidence shows that taking regular breaks from mental tasks improves productivity and creativity — and that skipping breaks can lead to stress and exhaustion. David Rock
• There is a rhythm in our bodies that operates in 90-minute intervals. That rhythm is the ultradian rhythm, which moves between high arousal and fatigue. If you’re working over a period of 90 minutes, there are all kinds of indicators in your physiology of fatigue; so what your body is really saying to you is, ‘Give me a break!  Refuel me!’  Tony Schwartz
• When you allow your mind to take a break, it comes back stronger, sharper, more focused and creative. Richard Carlson

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Go for walks

• The simple act of walking can be a tremendous boost to your focus, productivity, clarity of mind, not to mention your health and waistline. Leo Babauta
• Walking,  Hiking

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Make time for play

• That’s right, you can be more productive if you play more! Neil Fiore
• Play

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Live a balanced life

• True effectiveness requires balance. Stephen Covey
• Living a balanced life brings about many benefits. It’s not only vital to our happiness, health and well-being; it can significantly increase our productivity and overall success. Rhodri Jones
• To maintain the P/PC Balance, the balance between the golden egg (production) and the health and welfare of the goose (production capability) is often a difficult judgment call. But I suggest it is the very essence of effectiveness. Stephen Covey
• Balance

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Look for opportunities to delegate

• Effectively delegating to others is perhaps the single most powerful high-leverage activity there is. Stephen Covey
• The effective person never asks HOW will I get to do this but rather WHO will I get to do this. Mary Cantando
• We accomplish all that we do through delegation – either to time or to other people. Stephen Covey
• The great strength of delegation is that we can accomplish so much more. It allows us to multiply ourselves and increase leverage to grow our businesses beyond our own individual capacities. Stephen Covey
• Delegate when you can more usefully use your energy and time to focus on other important issues. Andy Britnell
• Delegation

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Look for opportunities to outsource

• Do what you can do the best and outsource the rest. Tom Peters
• I outsource because it makes me more effective. It helps me focus on the high value, 20% tasks that make the biggest impact in my life. Celestine Chua
• Why drown yourself with work that is not of pertinent value to you when you can outsource it for $5, $8, or $10 an hour? Celestine Chua
• The more low value tasks you outsource, the more time you have to do higher value stuff. Celestine Chua

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People are most productive in small teams

• We have always found that people are most productive in small teams with tight budgets, time lines and the freedom to solve their own problems. John Rollwagen

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Learn to deal with procrastination

• Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today. Benjamin Franklin
• Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday. Napoleon Hill
• Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy. Wayne Dyer
• Procrastination is the greatest stealer of   Robin Sharma
• In the dim background of our mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow, we cannot start. William James
• Emmett’s Law: “The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself.  Rita Emmett
• The most life-destroying word of all is the word tomorrow. Robert Kiyosaki
• Procrastination

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Learn to beat perfectionism …

• Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism…confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person. David M. Burns
• The perfect is the enemy of the good. Voltaire
• Don’t let the desire for perfection become procrastination. Danielle LaPorte
• Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Voltaire
• Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solitude is the enemy of well- being. John Updike
• The maxim ‘Nothing but perfection’ may be spelled ‘Paralysis’. Winston Churchill
• Perfectionism is the enemy of creation. John Updike
• Perfectionism

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… by consciously trying to be imperfect

• Try to be imperfect. Intentionally do the first part of your project sloppily (don’t show it to your boss yet); do it fast and inadequately. Neil Fiore
• Settle for “good enough” rather than wasting time on unnecessary perfection. Stever Robbins
• Follow Guy Kawasaki’s wisdom and “Think crappy!” Just get to work!! Identify the first milestone you want to hit. Just get to work! Then, as Kawasaki says, “Churn, baby, churn!” As you move forward from your first crappy version, “churn” it so it evolves into a more and more beautiful masterpiece. Brian Johnson
• Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly. Robert H. Schuller
• Get it 80 percent right and then correct it later.” Run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. Don’t expect perfection the first time or even the first few times. Brian Tracy
• Self-acceptance

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Harness the power of making a start

• If you wait for that ‘perfect moment’ you’re not going to be very productive. Scott Belsky
• A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. Lao Tzu
• The distance of the road to success becomes shorter as soon as you take the first step. Greg Phillips
• No matter how big and tough a problem may be, get rid of confusion by taking one little step towards the solution. Do something. Georg Nordenholt
• The distance isn’t important; it is only the first step that is difficult. Marquise Deffand
• To go far you must begin near, and the nearest step is the most important one. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Fortunate are those who take the first steps. Paulo Coelho
• Action—in the present—changes the future. A trip of ten thousand miles starts out with one step, not with a fantasy about travel. David K. Reynolds
• When there is a start to be made, don’t step over! Start where you are. Edgar Cayce
• Make a start

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Learn to be decisive

• Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• A man has to choose. This is where lies his strength: in the power of his decisions. Paulo Coelho
• Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something. It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions. Stephen Covey
• Sometimes the smallest choice, one that you might make within these 24 hours, can set into motion huge energies bringing you great good and enormous joy. Neale Donald Walsch
• Decision making

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Learn to relax …

• Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax When you relax, your brain shifts into alpha state–the time when million-dollar ideas present themselves.  Marc and Angel Chernoff
• Your ability to be productive is directly proportional to your ability to relax. David Allen
• Your power is proportional to your ability to relax. David Allen
• Everything you do can be done better from a place of relaxation. Stephen C. Paul
• No matter how much pressure you feel at work, if you could find ways to relax for at least five minutes every hour, you’d be more productive. Dr Joyce Brothers
• Relaxation

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… in order to harness the power of calmness

• Calmness is the cradle of power. G. Holland
• Being relaxed, at peace with yourself, confident, emotionally neutral, loose, and free- floating – these are the keys to successful performance in almost everything. Wayne Dyer
• The cyclone derives its powers from a calm center. So does a person. Norman Vincent Peale
• The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be. Bruce Lee
• The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. James Allen
• The power of calm: In matters of the mind, the more mental effort you apply to any given situation, the less will be the result. Richard Carlson
• The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil. Marcus Tullius Cicero
• Wherever I go in the midst of movement and activity, I carry my stillness with me. Deepak Chopra
• The thing to do is to keep your mind when the world around you is losing theirs. Warren Buffett
• The calm and balanced mind is the strong and great mind; the hurried and agitated mind is the weak one. Wallace D. Wattles
• Calmness

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Practice meditation

• Some people think that meditation takes time away from physical accomplishment. Most people, however, find that meditation creates more time than it takes.   Peter McWilliams
• Meditation

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Don’t rush unnecessarily

• Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste. Benjamin Franklin
• Don’t rush. Go slowly. Be present. Rushing through our days causes difficulties and extra effort. Leo Babauta
• By rushing, you close off your connection to your higher faculties
• So surely as you find yourself in the mental attitude of haste, just so surely may you know that you are out of the mental attitude of greatness. Hurry and fear will instantly cut your connection with the universal mind. Wallace D. Wattles
• If you’re having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up — to know that there’s life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists in the present moment. You can’t find it anywhere else. Natalie Goldberg
• Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. Henry David Thoreau
• If you insist on being in a hurry, you’ll move very quickly — and often get nowhere. Take a breath. Find your peace.  Neale Donald Walsch
• The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.

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Only take control over what you can and allow the rest to flow

• Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can’t control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible. Epictetus
• How would your life be different if you stopped worrying about things you can’t control and started focusing on the things you can? Let today be the day…You free yourself from fruitless worry, seize the day and take effective action on things you can change. Steve Maraboli
• Go with the flow

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Get organised

• Getting your house in order and reducing the confusion gives you more control over your life. Personal organization somehow releases or frees you to operate more effectively. Larry King
• Early in my career I felt that organization would destroy my creativity. Whereas now, I feel the opposite. Discipline is the foundation that allows you to be creative. Verna Gibson
• Anxiety is caused by a lack of control, organization, preparation, and action. David Kekich
• A place for everything, everything in its place. Benjamin Franklin
• Get organised

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Create a trustworthy system that frees your mind of needing to remember what you have to do

• There is usually an inverse proportion between how much something is on your mind and how much it’s getting done. David Allen
• The constant, unproductive preoccupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and energy. Kerry Gleeson

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Clear the desks and cut loose debris

• Sometimes the biggest gain in productive energy will come from cleaning the cobwebs, dealing with old business, and clearing the desks—cutting loose debris that’s impeding forward motion. David Allen
• An empty desk is an efficient desk. Mr Warrenn

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• Nothing makes a person more productive than the last minute.
• Multitasking: Messing up several chores at the same time.
• I’m great at multitasking. I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at once.

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