Do not tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done.” — James J. Ling

As I see it, if you work more hours than somebody else, during those hours you learn more about your craft. That can make you more efficient, more able, even happier. Hard work is like compounded interest in the bank. The rewards build faster.

Productivity isn’t about how busy or efficient you are — it’s about how much you accomplish

By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day. — ROBERT FROST, American poet and winner of four Pulitzer Prizes

If everyone has the same number of hours in the day, why do some people seem to get so much more done than others? How do they do more, achieve more, earn more, have more? If time is the currency of achievement, then why are some able to cash in their allotment for more chips than others?

The answer is they make getting to the heart of things the heart of their approach. They go small. Going small is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do. It’s recognizing that not all things matter equally and finding the things that matter most. It’s a tighter way to connect what you do with what you want. It’s realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.

GOING SMALL If everyone has the same number of hours in a day, why do some people seem to get so much more done than others? How do they do more, achieve more, earn more, have more? If time is the currency of achievement, then why are some able to cash in their allotment for more chips than others? The answer is they make getting to the heart of things the heart of their approach. They go small.

For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.

Three to four hours a day, five days a week, of uninterrupted and carefully directed concentration, it turns out, can produce a lot of valuable output.

To do great work one must be very idle as well as very industrious.

The answer isn’t more hours, it’s less bullshit. Less waste, not more production. And far fewer distractions, less always-on anxiety, and avoiding stress.

I am only an average man, but by George, I work harder at it than the average man.

If you have an hour, will you not improve that hour, instead of idling it away?

My father enjoyed working hard, and he liked to see the result of his efforts. The lessons his mother had instilled had taken hold: Do your best. Don’t be arrogant. Never complain.

It has often been observed, that those who have the most time at their disposal profit by it the least. A single hour a day, steadily given to the study of some interesting subject, brings unexpected accumulations of knowledge.