the most productive people are the ones who strike a balance between the two extremes, who understand the power of capturing and organizing what they have to get done, but who also don’t sacrifice real work in favor of being productive about productivity.

The most productive people work at a pace somewhere between the monk and the stock trader — fast enough to get everything done, and slowly enough so they can identify what’s important and then work deliberately and with intention.

It then follows that finding something important and meaningful in your life is perhaps the most productive use of your time and energy. Because if you don’t find that meaningful something, your fucks will be given to meaningless and frivolous causes.

Some of the most productive times in the histories of nations have been when they were badly stressed — economically, politically, culturally or socially. It's possible to be stressed to a point that more creativity is stimulated than would otherwise be the case. I think it is true that necessity is the mother of invention.

Working differently is usually more productive than working harder.

Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster. Nobody in the history of humanity has ever achieved "work-life balance," whatever that might be, and you certainly won't get there by copying the "six things successful people do before 7:00 a.m." The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control — when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you're meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody's angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you've become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about. Let's start by admitting defeat: none of this is ever going to happen. But you know what? That's excellent news.

While no one acts in accordance with their values all the time, the most productive people act in accordance with their values in the long run — and they do this by regularly making course corrections and finding what they need to improve on week after week.

if you increase living standards you make labor more productive. This is why Asia today is becoming more productive than the United States.

Work dominates life in Eden-Olympia, and drives out everything else. The dream of a leisure society was the great twentieth-century delusion. Work is the new leisure. Talented and ambitious people work harder than they have ever done, and for longer hours. They find their only fulfillment through work. The men and women running successful companies need to focus their energies on the task in front of them, and for every minute of the day. The last thing they want is recreation.

Productivity is about how much you accomplish.

The less scheduled you are, the more creative you’re going to be.

Nothing will make you more productive than owning your time.

Nothing will make you less productive than selling it.

Productivity isn’t about being a workhorse, keeping busy or burning the midnight oil... . It’s more about priorities, planning, and fiercely protecting your time.” — Margarita Tartakovsky

The single best productivity hack that everyone should aspire to - don’t keep a schedule.