“You perform at your highest potential only when you are focusing on the most valuable use of your time. This is the key to personal and business success. It is the central issue in personal efficiency and time management. You must always be asking yourself, What is the most valuable use of my time right now? Discipline yourself to work exclusively on the one task that, at any given time, is the answer to this question. Keep yourself on track and focused on your most important responsibilities by asking yourself, over and over, What is the most valuable use of my time right now? How you can apply this law immediately: 1. Remember that you can do only one thing at a time. Stop and think before you begin. Be sure that the task you do is the highest-value use of your time. Remind yourself that anything else you do while your most important task remains undone is a relative waste of time. 2. Be clear about the most valuable work that you do for your organization. Whatever it is, resolve to concentrate on doing that specific task before anything else. Why are you on the payroll? What specific, tangible, measurable results are expected of you? And of all the different results you are capable of achieving, which are the most important to your career at this moment? Whatever the answer, this is where you must focus your energies, and nowhere else.”

“Your mind is designed in such a way that you cannot have an idea on the one hand without also having the ability to bring that idea into reality on the other. The very existence of an idea in your conscious mind means that you have within you and around you the capacity to turn it into reality. The only question you have to answer is, How badly do you want it?”

“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself and be lenient to everyone else.” —HENRY WARD BEECHER, NINETEENTH-CENTURY CLERGYMAN”

“Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.

“The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous.”

“You can make excuses or you can make progress. You choose.”

“There is one quality that one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants and a burning desire to achieve it.” 

“An average person who develops the habit of setting clear priorities and getting important tasks completed quickly will run circles around a genius who talks a lot and makes wonderful plans but gets very little done.”

“This is a wonderful time to be alive. There have never been more possibilities and opportunities for you to achieve more of your goals than exist today.”

“Priorities versus Posteriorities Setting priorities requires setting posteriorities as well. A priority is something that you do more of and sooner, whereas a posteriority is something you do less of or later. You are probably already overwhelmed with too much to do and too little time. Because of this, for you to embark on a new task, you must discontinue an old task. Getting into something new requires getting out of another activity. Before you commit to a new undertaking, ask yourself, “What am I going to stop doing so that I have enough time to work on this new task?” 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.”

“You are fully responsible for everything you are, everything you have and everything you become.”

“Today the greatest single source of wealth is between your ears.”

“The more you discipline yourself to use your time well, the happier you will feel and the better will be the quality of your life in every area.”

“The comfort zone is the greatest enemy of human potential.”

“Never talk about the content. Talk about the outcome.”