Secrets of Productive People - 50 Techniques To Get Things Done - Mark Forster
Summary
- Compilation of 50 ideas for productivity
Random Thoughts
- I really liked the idea about not prioritizing work. Though there may be caveats, but the principle is sound: When you commit to do something, you have to finish it. There is no priority: all the tasks must be done to complete the job. Just be careful what you commit to.
Details
- Identify system failure by the words never and always
- Often more productive people spend less time working
- Discretionary time is valuable to a productive person
- You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space - Johnny Cash
- Don't fall into the trap of being busy for busyness sake
- Only commit to work you can do. Then do all the work you have committed to.
- Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own - Bruce Lee
- Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man, he is sure to find an easy way of doing it - Walter Chrysler
- Clutter is as a result of having more coming in than going out. It applies to many things.
- Use electronic tools to provide feedback for yourself
- If you have a project, talk about it at every possible occasion
- The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency - Bill Gates
- Sow seeds of action now reap the benefits later
- Aim to beat your personal average rather than your personal best
Quotes
- For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned - Benjamin Franklin
- Your brain...is a work in progress...from the day we’re born to the day we die, it continuously revises and remodels, improving or slowly declining, as a function of how we use it - Michael Merzenich
- Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful - William Morris
- Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability - Edsger Dijkstra
- Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger - William Patten
- Action expresses priorities - Mahatma Gandhi
- Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant - Robert Louis Stevenson
- Children are born true scientists. They spontaneously experiment and experience and re-experience again - Buckminster Fuller
- If two men on the same job agree all the time, then one is useless. If they disagree all the time, both are useless - Darryl F. Zanuck
- There’s nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child - Frank A. Clark