I have a lot of nervous energy. Work is my best way of channelling that into something productive unless I want to wind up assaulting the postman or gardener.
Faced with a time shortage, we squeeze tasks into the nooks and crannies of our calendar, leaving less and less time to switch between them. As a result, we become less and less productive exactly when we need to be most productive.
One of the awesome things about being a writer is that I can research nearly anything – tea? Bubblegum? Ants? Neurology? Chocolate? Textile production? It doesn’t matter. It’s all productive work.
We need to blinker ourselves, to better monitor our attentional focus. Enforced periods of no email or Internet to allow us to sustain concentration have been shown to be tremendously helpful. And breaks – even a 15-minute break every two or three hours – make us more productive in the long run.
Nikola Tesla spent one of his most productive years in Colorado Springs.
It’s very productive scientifically; I often get some very good ideas for my research while hiking.
It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country.
Across the globe, regardless of nationality or financial status, there is a common dream every mother has for her children – for them to live full, healthy and productive lives. As a mother, I share that dream for my children.
The important thing to me is being productive. It helps me feel good as a person, helps me feel strong, helps me feel like I’m doing something throughout my days.
You cannot carry on forever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit.
If the machinery for distribution in the present economic system of the world is incapable of properly distributing the productive wealth of nations, then that system is false and must be altered.
Shaming people isn’t productive. That makes you feel bad about yourself.
In economies with excess productive capacity, targeted investment can yield a double benefit, generating short-run demand and boosting growth and productivity thereafter.
Whatever else it was, Adolf Hitler’s short-lived regime was also a colossal industrial process by which the wealth and productive power of much of Europe was wrenched from its normal purposes and converted into a machine for killing.
What feels most productive to me isn’t to think so much in terms of how I can be alternative, but how I can be subversive in a way that feels organic, how I can connect with people, and how I can just be myself, which may be the hardest thing to be.
Exporting firms are more productive and pay higher wages than their domestically focused counterparts, especially in places like Sub-Saharan Africa. If firms manage to thrive in world markets, they tend to increase their productivity even more.
A productive employee who is kept busy working at his or her job is far more likely to be happy at that job and less likely to look for employment elsewhere.
I mean, I’ve been kind of bad at self-care. I struggle with tying my self-care to being more effective and more productive. Especially as an entrepreneur, it’s hard not to.
Productive achievement is a consequence and an expression of health and self-esteem, not its cause.
I had to decide that, you know what, I don’t know who the hell I am or what I’m doing, but I do know that historically and scientifically and anecdotally, and anyone who is not an idiot knows, that waking up early and starting the day off with a nice, simple routine is a healthy and productive way to live one’s life.
Here in Seattle, I’m the most productive I’ve ever been. I don’t allow myself personal distractions. I’m extremely disciplined here.
I don’t believe that using inflammatory rhetoric on either side of a debate is productive.
Seattle’s not a particularly Jewish city, and I’m not in any way religious. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been a fairly productive, even obsessively productive, writer.
I am much more productive late at night because I have no one to look to for entertainment aside from myself.
Teams need the opportunity to learn about each other’s capabilities and develop productive routines. So once we get the right people on the bus, let’s make sure they spend some time driving together.
My career says that my doors will always be open for all. When an Anupam Kher walked in through my door at 28 and got ‘Saaransh,’ it launched his unimaginably productive career.
Being an American doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed a high wage. You have to be productive, and we have to create a very low-cost, efficient place to do business, and we’ve let all that slip in America.
To be productive and focused, the rugged individuals in our economy need health security so that our country can remain competitive and agile in the changing economy.
Too many leaders are so caught up in the momentum of work that they lose sight of the opportunity to connect with people. I discovered that the more fully present I was with other people, the more fully present they were with me, and the more productive our relationship became over time.
I have my own set of friends with whom I discuss better story ideas, views and scripts. So I channelize my time in a productive way.
It can be more productive to help people learn to be ‘right’ than prove they were ‘wrong.’
There’s a feeling among white Americans that there’s no such thing as racial harmony, no such thing as a positive, productive relationship with people of color.
In the business of politics, emotions and productive dissatisfaction with the world in which we live today are gradually being covered up by the minutiae of ordinary life.
I am a hopeless romantic who falls in lust and gets in trouble. I love my work and am very productive, yet I always find time to play.
I’ve always felt like I needed to experience some type of anguish in order to feel productive as an artist.
I think the fact that I am living my dream and being really productive and embarking on all my lifelong aspirations is proof enough that if I can do it, anyone can. I try to tell everybody to dream big and go after their dreams.
The Enlightenment diamond-shaped society, with a huge, prosperous, socially-mobile, empowered middle class, is by far the most productive and creative system the world has ever seen.
The Hudson River Tunnel is a chokepoint for the financial center – and most productive region – of the United States. It is the most heavily trafficked piece of rail in the entire country and even a partial closure will suffocate our nation’s economy.
If I was to go to sleep before midnight, I would feel weird about myself, like I wasted a day. My most productive hours are between midnight and five.
You’re actually making the rest of your day productive by spending 30 minutes reviewing your to-do’s, prioritizing them, and ruthlessly removing things that shouldn’t be there.
I knew after being drafted in the 57th round that I would be swiftly replaced if I wasn’t able to play through a considerable amount of pain in the minor leagues, and ultimately until I established myself as a productive, stable member of MLB.
There’s a basic kind of tension here. It’s between those who say, I’d like to clear cut this forest and reduce it to saw timber because that’s an economically productive thing for me to do.
Because of the increased efficiency of machines, it is getting harder and harder for a human to make a productive contribution to society.
I push every day against forces that say you have to go faster, be more effective, be more productive, you have to constantly outdo yourself, you have to constantly outdo your neighbor – all of the stuff that creates an incredibly productive society, but also a very neurotic one.
Very narrow areas of expertise can be very productive. Develop your own profile. Develop your own niche.
Menstruation not only carries with it the connotation of a productive system that has failed to produce; it also carries the idea of production gone awry, making products of no use, not to specification, unsalable, wasted, scrap.
I think that by following the route that I have tried to outline, one gets into a much more interesting and productive series of questions than those that result from saying simply that Chinese don’t like milk because they don’t like milk.
Productive and sustainable job creation, along with increased and better-targeted social expenditure, are the only routes to permanently beat the poverty trap and to bring our social indicators on par with developed countries.
Every non-Marxist economic theory that treats human and non-human productive inputs as interchangeable assumes that the dehumanisation of human labour is complete. But if it could ever be completed, the result would be the end of capitalism as a system capable of creating and distributing value.
In motivating people, you’ve got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate people, I hope, by example – and perhaps by excitement, by having productive ideas to make others feel involved.
If the only reason people are coming in and doing anything in your office is because you’re giving them a paycheck, I’m not sure you have the most productive workplace there.
