A lack of productivity can occur for various reasons: lack of organization or knowhow, stress, change of work locations or hours etc. Whatever might be causing you to experience a dip in productivity, here are 39 of the best productivity quotes for all situations.
Best quotes on productivity for all situations
1. “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
Abraham Lincoln
2. “Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.”
Peter Drucker
3. “There is no waste in the world that equals the waste from needless, ill-directed, and ineffective motions.”
Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.
4. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
Mark Twain
5. “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
Stephen King
6. “If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.”
Brian Tracy (Eat that Frog! book).
7. “Improved productivity means less human sweat, not more.”
Henry Ford
8. “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.”
Proverbs 15:22
9. “Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.”
Dale Carnegie
10. “Lost time is never found again.”
Benjamin Franklin
11. “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
Stephen Covey
12. “Don’t confuse activity with productivity. Many people are simply busy being busy.”
Robin Sharma
13. “It is necessary sometimes to take one step backward to take two steps forward.”
Vladimir Lenin
14. “There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.”
John F. Kennedy
15. “You can’t get much done in life if you only work on days when you feel good.”
Jerry West
16. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
Walt Disney
17. “Action is the foundational key to all success.”
Picasso
18. “You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.”
George Lorimer
19. “Ordinary people think merely of spending time, great people think of using it.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
20. “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.”
Paul J. Meyer
21. “What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50 percent.”
Susan Cain
22. “Someday is not a day of the week.”
Janet Dailey
23. “Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.”
Gretchen Rubin
24. “It’s not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less.”
Nathan W. Morris
25. “Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”
Napoleon Hill
26. “Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”
Earl Nightingale
27. “You don’t get paid for the hour, you get paid for the value you bring to the hour.”
Jim Rohn
28. “If you want an easy job to seem mighty hard, just keep putting if off.”
Richard Miller
29. “You can do anything, but not everything.”
David Allen
30. “Nothing is particularly hard when you divide it into small jobs.”
Henry Ford
31. “Both good and bad days should end with productivity. You mood affairs should never influence your work.”
Greg Evans
32. “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”
Bruce Lee
33. “Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.”
Caterina Fake
There you are – 33 of the best productivity quotes to give you a boost under any circumstances.
What other ones do you know or have inspired you before? Please share in the comments below.
More on productivity:
7 best productivity books of all time – for everyone
12 tips to keep productive while working from home
I love that you chose inspirational people from many walks of life. I especially love Stephen King’s take as a writer.
Thank you, Kimberlie.
Number four speaks to me. It is really hard to start something new or different sometimes. The quote is a great reminder to just do it. In life, we just really need to start things, be it a goal or a job or a hobby. Great list!
Me, too. I find that a sense of perfectionism sometimes stops me from getting started at all. Thank you, Gail.
Such a great list of quotes, very motivational! Thanks for sharing these!
You’re welcome!
I love quotes of all kinds. Great list!
Thank you!