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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Brian Tracy
Read between
August 28, 2021 - September 11, 2022
The completion of an important task triggers the release of endorphins in your brain. These endorphins give you a natural “high.”
Stephen Covey says, “If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”
Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now. ALAN LAKEIN
The good news is that every minute spent in planning saves as many as ten minutes in execution.
One of the most important rules of personal effectiveness is the 10/90 Rule. This rule says that the first 10 percent of time that you spend planning and organizing your work before you begin will save you as much as 90 percent of the time in getting the job done
We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright. JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control of the sequence of events.
Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.
Every great man has become great, every successful man has succeeded, in proportion as he has confined his powers to one particular channel. ORISON SWETT MARDEN
The mark of the superior thinker is his or her ability to accurately predict the consequences of doing or not doing something.
The time is going to pass anyway. The only question is how you use it and where you are going to end up at the end of the weeks and months that pass.
The Law of Forced Efficiency says, “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.”
Under the pressure of deadlines, often self-created through procrastination, people suffer greater stress, make more mistakes, and have to redo more tasks than under any other conditions.
What can you and only you do that if done well can make a real difference?
“What is the most valuable use of my time right now?”
A priority is something that you do more of and sooner, while a posteriority is something that you do less of and later, if at all.
One of the most powerful of all words in time management is the word no!
For you to do something new, you must complete or stop doing something old. Getting in requires getting out. Picking up means putting down.
Continually review your life and work to find time-consuming tasks and activities that you can abandon. Cut down on television watching and Internet surfing and instead spend the time with your family, read, exercise, or do something else that enhances the quality of your life.
The first law of success is concentration—to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor to the left. WILLIAM MATHEWS
When every physical and mental resource is focused, one’s power to solve a problem multiplies tremendously. NORMAN VINCENT PEALE
“Why am I on the payroll?” This is one of the most important questions you can ever ask and answer, over and over again, throughout your career.
A key result area is defined as something for which you are completely responsible. If you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. A key result area is an activity that is under your control. It produces an output that becomes an input or a contributing factor to the work of others.
The key result areas of management are planning, organizing, staffing, delegating, supervising, measuring, and reporting.
“What one skill, if I developed and did it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on my career?”
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Your rewards, both financial and emotional, will always be in direct proportion to your results, to the value of your contribution.
When you go to work, put your head down and work the whole time. Start a little earlier, stay a little later, and work a little harder. Don’t waste time. Every minute that you spend in idle chitchat with coworkers is time taken away from the work that you must accomplish if you want to do well at your job.
By not working effectively and efficiently during your workday, you create unnecessary stress and deprive the members of your family of the very best person you can possibly be.
No matter what the level of your ability, you have more potential than you can ever develop in a lifetime. JAMES T. MCCAY
Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time. SAMUEL SMILES
“Leap—and the net will appear!”
A great life or a great career is built by performing one task at a time, quickly and well, and then going on to the next task.
You can overcome procrastination and accomplish extraordinary things by taking just the first step, getting started toward your goal, and then taking it one step, one oil barrel, at a time.
The only certain means of success is to render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be. OG MANDINO
Upgrading your skills is one of the most important personal productivity principles of all.
As Pat Riley, the basketball coach, said, “Anytime you stop striving to get better, you’re bound to get worse.”
Identify the most important things you do, and then make a plan to continually upgrade your skills in those areas.
Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.
listen to audio programs in your car. The average car owner sits behind the wheel 500 to 1,000 hours each year while driving from place to place. Turn driving time into learning time.
Concentrate all your thoughts on the task at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
Whatever you have to do, there is always a limiting factor that determines how quickly and well you get it done. Your job is to study the task and identify the limiting factor or constraint within it. You must then focus all of your energies on alleviating that single choke point.
They accept complete responsibility for their lives and look to themselves for both the cause and cure of their problems.
The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary. THOMAS EDISON
The world is full of people who are waiting for someone to come along and motivate them to be the kind of people they wish they could be. The problem is that no one is coming to the rescue.
Only about 2 percent of people can work entirely without supervision. We call these people “leaders.”
It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and of creative action that man finds his supreme joys. ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY
You must develop a routine of coaching yourself and encouraging yourself to play at the top of your game.
You must refuse to let the unavoidable difficulties and setbacks of daily life affect your mood or emotions.
Viktor Frankl wrote in his bestselling book Man’s Search for Meaning, “The last of the human freedoms [is] to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
