Most people move actually into high performance in a crisis because that creates the kind of focus that creates high performance.
You won’t see how to do it until you see yourself doing it.
Things rarely get stuck because of lack of time. They get stuck because the doing of them has not been defined.
Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.
People allow themselves to get distracted; I think ultimately, probably the biggest thing that gets in the way of people doing what they ought to be doing at any point in time is distraction.
Small things done consistently, in strategic places, create major impact.
Most of the stress people experience comes from inappropriately managed commitments they make or accept.
I think positive stress is actually a good thing. It’s sort of the stretch goal “Wow, let me see how much faster I can run” or “Let me see how many more ideas I can generate in five minutes.”
The sense of anxiety and guilt doesn’t come from having too much to do; it’s the automatic result of breaking agreements with yourself.
If you don’t pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.
There’s a lot of reasons why deadline-driven may actually – it’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just all it does is it speeds up and makes you a little proactive about decision making.
You can do anything, but not everything.
Use your mind to think about things, rather than think of them. You want to be adding value as you think about projects and people, not simply reminding yourself they exist.
You can fool everyone else, but you can’t fool your own mind.
Procastination is not about not doing is about not doing and feeling crappy.
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.
The right amount of complexity is what creates the optimal simplicity.
Every decision to act is an intuitive one. The challenge is to migrate from hoping it’s the right choice to trusting it’s the right choice.
The reason that deadline actually can work very well for you is what it forces you to do is make decisions.
Want freedom? Get organized. Want to get organized? Get creative.