Productivity

• “On any given day, how much time do you spend towards what matters most to you? Spending time with your family? Working on your craft? Taking care of yourself? Or…Do you spend hours on social media? Gossip sites? Randomly scrolling through Reddit until you realize an hour has passed by and you’ve done nothing productive? High-achievers tend to be great at prioritizing what is most important to them, so reflect on what you spend your time doing and make the necessary changes to realize the life of your dreams.”  11 Stoic Principles to Adopt to Live a Happier, More Fulfilling Life, Matt Valentine.  https://www.goalcast.com/2018/03/28/stoic-philosophy-principles-for-happier-life/
• “When you are fully rested, for example, you can get two times, three times, and five times as much done as when you are tired or burned out.  One of the most important requirements for being happy and productive is for you to guard and nurture your energy levels at all times.”  Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy, Page 80 
• “…your productivity begins to decline after eight or nine hours of work.”  .”  Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy, Page 80
• “In addition to getting lots of rest, to keep your energy levels at their highest, be careful about what you eat.  Start the day with a high-protein, low-fat, and low-carbohydrate breakfast. Eat salads with fish or chicken at lunch.  Avoid sugar, salt, white flour products, and desserts. Avoid soft drinks, candy bars, and pastries. Feed yourself as you would feed a world-class athlete before a competition because in many respects, that’s what you are before starting work each day.  Aim to exercise about 200 minutes each week, the agreed-upon standard for excellent levels of fitness. This is equal to about thirty minutes per day and can be achieved by going for a walk before or after work or by walking short stretches during the day.  You can swim, use exercise equipment, or play sports, but build exercise into your daily routine, just as if it were a business appointment. By eating lean and healthy, exercising regularly, getting lots of rest, you’ll get more and better work done easier and with greater satisfaction than ever before.”  Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy, Page 83
• “Those who have the courage to discover and bring forth their genius breakthrough to unparalleled heights of productivity and life satisfaction. Discovering your Zone of Genius is your life’s Big Leap. Everything up until now has been about hops, not leaps. Hopping, though it seems safe, is actually hazardous to your health. If you confine yourself to hops, you run the risk of rusting from the inside out. I know. I caught myself, halfway through my life, in the very act of rusting. There I was, hopping along in my Zone of Excellence when suddenly I became aware of a dull and sluggish feeling deep within me. I couldn’t figure out what it was at first. As I tuned in to it, I realized it had been there for months, maybe years. I had gotten to a place in my life where I could almost sleepwalk through doing all the things that kept me successful—writing books, giving speeches, coaching executives, teaching seminars. I did them and did them and did them, and the money kept pouring in. Soon there were employees, a big building, three houses, and an army of support personnel that needed to be fed. I remember well the day it all imploded on me. I got off the plane, exhausted from a grueling trip during which I’d given many talks and seminars—nineteen cities in twenty-one days. I stopped by the office on the way home, and there I encountered glum looks on the faces of my accountant and administrative director. They announced that taxes were due and that because of a cash-flow shortfall I needed to borrow $120,000 from myself to pay our taxes. I felt like a hunter-gatherer returning with a wild boar for the campfire, expecting high-fives and a hot dinner, only to be told I also owed a couple of buffalo. I slunk home, dejected and irritated, and there I found that my garage door opener had died. Leaving my car in the driveway, I trudged out to get the mail. The first thing I pulled out was a big envelope emblazoned with this headline: “Congratulations on Turning 50! Here Is Your Free AARP Card!” I paused to digest the significance of this moment, and that’s when I became aware of the sluggish, dull feeling deep within me. At first, I worried it might be a medical problem, so I started by getting a thorough workup. I discovered that I was in the best of health, except for twenty extra pounds of prosperity-induced padding, the effects of too many well-paid after-dinner speeches. Finding I was in good health meant I had to take a deeper look. When I did, I found the source of my rust, and that discovery changed my life. The source was hidden in plain sight: it was the Upper Limit Problem I knew so well. In spite of knowing a lot about it intellectually, I had gotten comfortably numb in my Zone of Excellence. So comfortably numb, in fact, that the ULP had sneaked up and gotten me. Without realizing it, I’d worn such a comfortable rut in my Zone of Excellence that I had overlooked the beckoning calls of my Zone of Genius. Fortunately, I got the message in time. I want to make sure you do, too.”  The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level (Gay Hendricks) Page 113
• “Over the past decade, Gallup has surveyed more than 10 million people worldwide on the topic of employee engagement (or how positive and productive people are at work), and only one-third “strongly agree” with the statement: “At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.” And for those who do not get to focus on what they do best—their strengths—the costs are staggering. In a recent poll of more than 1,000 people, among those who “strongly disagreed” or “disagreed” with this “what I do best” statement, not one single person was emotionally engaged on the job. In stark contrast, our studies indicate that people who do have the opportunity to focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general.”  StrengthsFinder 2.0 (Tom Rath)  Kindle Location 118-26
• “If you already have money without the necessity of working, it becomes easy not to develop the discipline and focus that lead to competency. Children who are raised in an impoverished environment are forced to become independent and competent because there is nobody providing for them. Whatever they desire must come through their own effort. What happens to a wealthy child surrounded by people who do things for the child: tutors, nannies, and strong parents-a whole world of people whose main function is to service the child? The critical issue is the lack of work experience. If you read autobiographies of great achievers, most of them struggled and had significant work experience. They sold newspapers, they worked on the docks, they worked in a store. They really worked hard, and this type of work is one of the important competency experiences. Contrast this to the world of wealthy children. If they’re not in school, they’re often in summer camp or traveling in Europe. Not only do they often miss the opportunity of working, but in families of generational wealth, they don’t even see the model of work in their families. The source of the family’s financial support is a trust fund. In these situations, how are they going to get the idea about what it means to work? Work is important because it is a method of validating oneself. Additionally, it gives the individual the opportunity to experience the “high” of achievement. When a child becomes addicted to the excitement of achievement, then money will not impair their productivity.” Wealth in Families Third Edition (Charles W. Collier) Page 44-45