Time Management Quotes

"Ironically the more behind you get, the more stressed you feel, and that stress itself makes it harder and harder to stay focused."

—John Gray

“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”

—Pico Iyer

“Time is a construct of the mind, and we can orient to it any way we want.”

—Kevin Courtney 

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days....it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”

—Annie Dillard

“Time is your total capital.”

—Robert Heiland

"Time waste differs from material waste in that there can be no salvage. The easiest of all wastes and the hardest to correct is the waste of time, because wasted time does not litter the floor like wasted material."

—Henry Ford

"The individual is the maker of the very environment to which he becomes a slave; but he has also the power to break away from it and create an environment that will not dull his mind or spirit."

—Krishnamurti

"Design crushes willpower."

—B.J. Fogg

"For a habit to stay changed, people must believe change is possible."

—Charles Duhigg 

You’ll never find balance. You have to schedule it.

—Tim Ferris

"Our choice of how to spend time is our choice of how to live life."

—Anonymous

"Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay." 

—Simone de Beauvoir 

"It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends."

—J.K. Rowling

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

—Steve Jobs

“To discern what is truly essential we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep, and the discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choices we make.” 

— Greg McKeown

"Procrastinating isn’t something you need to stop doing – it’s something you need to get better at."

—Gregg Krech

"Knowledge has no value except that which can be gained from its application toward some worthy end."

—Napolean Hill

“Time is a locus of the perception of a hologram that already stands complete; it is a subjective, sensory effect of a progressively moving point of you.”

—David Hawkins

“It’s not the daily increase, it’s the daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”

—Bruce Lee

“Unless a decision has degenerated into work, it is not a decision; it is at best a good intention... thus, even high level decisions should translate into the simplest actions.” 

—Peter Drucker

"What will your life have been, in the end, but the sum total of everything you spent it focusing on?"

—Oliver Burkeman

“A good tool improves the way you work. A great tool improves the way you think.” 

—Jeff Duntemann

"In order to become an experienced and benevolent 'manager' of your own life you have to know how your body functions, what the tolerable limits of pollution are, under what conditions it will deliver its maximum efficiency."

—Johanna Paungger

“Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior.”

—James Clear

"Monotony is the law of nature. Look at the monotonous manner in which the sun rises." 

—Gandhi

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

—Bertrand Russell

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."

—E.F. Schumacher

“Productivity is not about getting more things done; it’s about getting the right things done. It’s about starting each day with clarity and ending with a sense of satisfaction, accomplishment, and energy to spare. It’s about achieving more by doing less.”

—Michael Hyatt

"There are investments that you make to optimize for financial ROI, and then there are investments that you make which are decisions about allocating resources for optimizing other things.” 

—Tim Ferriss

"The simplest way to cut through the fog of distraction is to make sure that you punctuate your life with periods of stillness to observe what is going on inside of you."

—John Gray

"For the animal, child, or hunter-gatherer, time is essentially infinite. Today its monetization has subjected it, like the rest, to scarcity. Time is life. When we experience time as scarce, we experience life as short and poor."

—Charles Eisenstein

“Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.”

 —Peter Drucker

“Productivity is about mind management, not time management, and while simple tools — such as to-do items — are useful, they don’t account for the shortcomings of real human behavior.”

—David Kadavy

“Time is what we want most but we use worst.”

—William Penn, Founder of Pennsylvania

"You cannot be confident if you have a lot of unfinished projects sitting on the shelf. You cannot be confident if you aren’t a finisher. Starting is easy. Finishing is hard."

—Ben Hardy

"Increasingly, it’s about doing inspired and truly profound work. In relationships and opportunities and experiences, it’s about being really connected to yourself, the moment, and the right people. That’s when 100X success happens. It doesn’t just happen by putting in the time. You need to put in the right time."

—Ben Hardy

“A good tool improves the way you work. A great tool improves the way you think.” 

—Jeff Duntemann

"You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems."

—James Clear

“Action isn’t something that comes after figuring things out. Action is a way of figuring things out."

—Gregg Krech

"We live by action; we cannot possibly avoid action… The movement of life is action."

—J. Krishnamurti

“Every result that you desire is preceded by a process that is required to produce the result. When you define YOUR process and commit to it for an extended period of time, the results take care of themselves."

—Hal Elrod

“Your subconscious mind works continuously, while you are awake, and while you sleep.”

—Napoleon Hill

"The Tao does nothing, and yet nothing remains undone."

—Lao Tzu

"Remember that just because you're doing a lot more doesn't mean you're getting a lot more done. Don't confuse movement with progress."

—Denzel Washington