Productivity is not about getting more things done; it’s about getting the right things done.
What gets scheduled gets done.
People rarely get more of anything until they have learned to be grateful for what they already have.
You must create more margin so you have room for what’s important, not merely urgent.
If you don’t have a plan for your life, someone else does.
Events in one area of our lives cascade into every other area.
If you design your life so that you spend most of your time working on things you are passionate about and proficient at, the discipline to do those things comes easily.
The first key difference between an unmet goal and personal success is the belief that it can be achieved.
By reaching for what appears to be impossible, we often actually do the impossible; and even when we don’t quite make it, we inevitably wind up doing much better than we would have done.
Information consumes the attention of its recipients,” he explained, and “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.
To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor. – Oliver Wendell Holmes.
True productivity is about doing more of what is in your desire zone and less of everything else.
One speaker, Herbert Simon, was a Carnegie Mellon professor of computer science and psychology who later won a Nobel for his work in economics. In his presentation, he warned that the growth of information could become a burden. Why? “Information consumes the attention of its recipients,” he explained, and “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”1.
In a world where information is freely available, focus becomes one of the most valuable commodities in the workplace.
If you want to master your schedule, increase your efficiency and output, and create more margin in your life for the things you care about, you’ve got to learn how to focus.
The truth is that you will never have more of what you want until you become thankful for what you have.
For real productivity, however, we need to prioritize people. You’re a human being, not a human doing.
No matter how talented you are, if you’re not making a contribution in a certain area, you’re not truly proficient.
Oliver Burkeman asks, “What will your life have been, in the end, but the sum total of everything you spent it focusing on?”17.
One of the biggest reasons we don’t succeed with our goals is we doubt we can. We believe they’re out of reach.