"I began to view attention as the most important ingredient we can add if we’re to become more productive, creative, and happy—at work and at home."

— Chris Bailey, Hyperfocus

"You don't need to worry about progressing slowly. You need to worry about climbing the wrong mountain."

- James Clear

"To make an important change in your situation, the important thing is to establish clarity of passion and purpose—the reason why you want to change and where you want to get."

- Bill Beswick, Changing Your Story

"When we know where we're going — and know that we really, really want to get there — it is much easier for us to stay on course, true to ourselves. We are more likely to say "no" to externally imposed obligations, to requests that are not aligned with our interests, to the sirens of status — and to say "yes" to the call, the voice coming from within."

- Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen.”

- Henry David Thoreau

“The best to-do list sticks to a handful of very specific, actionable, and non-conflicting items. Schedule your number one priority first. Attack it immediately in the morning. Start there and you will win your morning hours and you will own your day.”

- Craig Ballantyne, The Perfect Day Formula

"Notifications are the gateway drug to distraction. The ability to focus is becoming rare—while being distracted is becoming the default."

- Cal Newport, Deep Work

“Minimizing distractions is an important part of curbing our online procrastination. To stay really connected to our goal pursuit, we need to disconnect from potential distractions like social-networking tools. This means that we should not have Facebook, Twitter, email, or whatever your favorite suite of tools is running in the background on your computer or smartphone while you are working. Shut them off.”

- Timothy Pychyl, Solving the Procrastination Puzzle

“Intelligence without focus is like a garden hose with no direction—nothing grows.”

- Sharran Srivatsaa

“If we know our priorities, we can build our routine, scripting out tomorrow today in order to maximize the time and effort spent working towards what matters.”

- Craig Ballantyne, The Perfect Day Formula

“Here is a trick that will give you an extra month of efficiency each year. It’s easy to implement, immediately effective, and doesn’t cost a cent. First, go to your e-mail program. Second, disable all the audio alerts and mailbox pop-ups… That’s it, there is no third step. Banishing e-mail notifications will make you about 10 percent more efficient and over a year that translates into one more month of productivity.”

- Piers Steel, The Procrastination Equation

“Goal achievement has to do with only two things: Managing where your attention goes, and managing where your effort goes. That’s it. Our job is to continuously reprioritize, reorganize, and optimize those two things.”

- Sharran Srivatsaa

"Focus is about saying no. No to distractions. No to interruptions."

- Steve Jobs

“Eliminate temptations and destroy distractions.”

- Craig Ballantyne

"Don't waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people — unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You'll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they're saying, and what they're thinking, and what they're up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind."

- Marcus Aurelius

"Clarity Creates Power: When you know your #1 priority, you can channel all your energy toward what matters most."

- Brian Johnson, Areté

"Arguably the single most important factor in your quality of life is what we choose to focus on. This is true both in the short term, in that what you focus on in any given moment determines how you feel in any given moment, and it’s also true in the long term: what you focus on over an extended period of time determines what you do or don’t accomplish and create for your life. So your internal quality of life is based on what you’re focusing on in the moment, and your external quality of life in terms of your circumstances, your relationships, is based on what you focus on consistently over an extended period of time. The single most determining factor in your quality of life, both short term and long term, is what you focus on."

— Hal Elrod, Achieve Your Goals Podcast

“An example of your amazing, but possibly underutilized, ability to control your motivation, not to mention your efficiency, is how you feel right before a vacation. In the time prior to taking a vacation, you're super organized. You edit the things on your to-do list to only the most necessary. You're awesome at managing your time and getting things done. It's almost miraculous how efficient you become. What would happen if you treated each workday as if you had that plane to catch for your vacation?”

- Tim and Julie Harris, Harris Rules

“Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.”

- John Carmack

"Studies show that bright lines—non-negotiable rules—reduce decision fatigue and strengthen willpower. When the choice is already made, you can focus your energy where it matters most—on taking consistent action."

- Brian Johnson, Areté