Quotes about Focus

if God was at the center of your life, everything else would find its proper place.

Pareto Principle—80 percent of the results flow out of 20 percent of the activities.

The carpenter's rule is "measure twice, cut once.

You can't become principle-centered without first being aware of and developing your own proactive nature. You can't become principle-centered without first being aware of your paradigms and understanding how to shift them and align them with principles. You can't become principle-centered without a vision of and a focus on the unique contribution that is yours to make.

Consider: What difference would a clear vision of my principles, values, and ultimate objectives make in the way I spend my time?

He who has a 'why' can live with any 'what.

All of us are interested in things outside of our stewardships, and we should be, but the most important way to do anything about them is to magnify our own stewardships. When you focus on your own responsibility, you become relatively unconcerned with other peoples stewardships...The highest form of influence is to be a model, not a critic; a light, not a judge.

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.

Effective people are not problem-minded; they're opportunity-minded. They feed opportunities and starve problems. They think preventively. They have genuine Quadrant I crises and emergencies that require their immediate attention, but the number is comparatively small.

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.

They suggest that the essence of principled negotiation is to separate the person from the problem, to focus on interests and not on positions, to invent options for mutual gain, and to insist on objective criteria—some external standard or principle that both parties can buy into.

"Begin with the end in mind" is to begin today with the image, picture, or paradigm of the end of your life as your frame of reference or the criterion by which everything else is examined.