Quotes about Efficiency

The first rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.

Concentrate all your thoughts on the task at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

Apply the 80/ 20 Rule to everything: Twenty percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results. Always concentrate your efforts on that top 20 percent.

Focus on key result areas: Identify those results that you absolutely, positively have to get to do your job well, and work on them all day long.

Apply the Law of Three: Identify the three things you do in your work that account for 90 percent of your contribution, and focus on getting them done before anything else. You will then have more time for your family and personal life.

Upgrade your key skills: The more knowledgeable and skilled you become at your key tasks, the faster you start them and the sooner you get them done. Determine exactly what it is that you are very good at doing, or could be very good at, and throw your whole heart into doing those specific things very, very well.

Develop a sense of urgency: Make a habit of moving fast on your key tasks. Become known as a person who does things quickly and well.

Single handle every task: Set clear priorities, start immediately on your most important task, and then work without stopping until the job is 100 percent complete. This is the real key to high performance and maximum personal productivity.

Go through your life regularly and practice "creative abandonment": Consciously determine the activities that you are going to discontinue so that you have more time to spend on those tasks that can really make a difference to your future.

Today, the best businesses position themselves as "partners" with their customers, vendors, and suppliers. Instead of spreading their business over a large number of other companies, they consolidate their business with a single supplier with whom they work closely to develop high-quality relationships that lead to better quality, greater efficiency, and eventually, lower prices and higher profits for both parties.

This discipline of systematic time planning can be very helpful to you. Many people have told me that the habit of taking a couple of hours at the end of each week to plan the coming week has increased their productivity dramatically and changed their lives completely. This technique will work for you as well.

Make work appointments with yourself and then discipline yourself to keep them. Set aside thirty-, sixty-, and ninety-minute time segments that you use to work on and complete important tasks. Many highly productive people schedule specific activities in preplanned time slots all day long. These people build their work lives around accomplishing key tasks one at a time.