But you have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically—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.

The more our values are in harmony with principles, the better decisions we will make… and the more inner peace we will have.

It is only in orienting his life to the divine center that a person can secure anything else he desires and yet not be based upon it.

The key is to not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

Do what is important rather than what is urgent.

You might work on your behavior—you could try harder, be more diligent, double your speed. But your efforts would only succeed in getting you to the wrong place faster.

Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.

By keeping that end clearly in mind, you can make certain that whatever you do on any particular day does not violate the criteria you have defined as supremely important, and that each day of your life contributes in a meaningful way to the vision you have of your life as a whole.

We're into managing with efficiency, setting and achieving goals before we have even clarified our values.

When Gates first met Warren Buffett at a dinner, the host asked all those at the table what they saw as the single most important factor in their journey through life. As Alice Schroeder related in her book The Snowball, both Gates and Buffett gave the same one-word answer: "Focus" (Habit 3: Put First Things First

To maintain the P/PC Balance, the balance between the golden egg (production) and the health and welfare of

A "PEOPLE" DIMENSION. You also need a tool that deals with people, not just schedules. While you can think in terms of efficiency in dealing with time, a principle-centered person thinks in terms of effectiveness in dealing with people. There are times when principle-centered Quadrant II living requires the subordination of schedules to people.