Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.

One of the things I realized is that if you do not take control over your time and your life, other people will gobble it up. If you don’t prioritize yourself, you constantly start falling lower and lower on your list, your kids fall lower and lower on your list.

An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox.

In one way, I suppose, I have been ‚in denial‘ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.

Most of the time, songs that I write end up being finished in 30 minutes or less.

I don’t have time to be lonely. And I get fearful of relationships because I feel guilty about wanting someone to be completely faithful and loyal, when I can’t even give them 10 percent of the attention that they need. It’s just the reality of my time, my life, my schedule.

I’m very much into making lists and breaking things apart into categories.

I think how you start the day many times determines what kind of day you’re going to have.

I just don’t have time to get old!

I’ve never been a hands-on dad. I’m not ashamed to admit it, but you can’t run a restaurant and be home for tea at 4:30 and bath and change nappies.

The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win – you pass the test.

There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

When I’m writing, I don’t feel neurotic. So it’s better for the family if I’m working.

All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.

When asked, ‚How do you write?‘ I invariably answer, ‚one word at a time.‘

Yes, and I can sit down on a white piece of paper and work because I don’t believe too much into inspiration, only I’m waiting for inspiration, work and then inspiration may come. It’s a little too easy to say that.

One today is worth two tomorrows.

Discipline starts every day when the first alarm clock goes off in the morning. I say ‚first alarm clock‘ because I have three, as I was taught by one of the most feared and respected instructors in SEAL training: one electric, one battery powered, one windup.

Sometimes if you got a problem deep rooted in your life, it takes a little bit of time to overcome it in that area.

Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.

Since thou are not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour.

What one has, one ought to use: and whatever he does he should do with all his might.

A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. He is by constitution expensive, and needs to be rich.

When I finish something, I want it out that day. Pop music is like the daily paper. Its got to be there then, not six months later.

Have fun in your command. Don’t always run at a breakneck pace. Take leave when you’ve earned it, spend time with your families.

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.

I have to admit, I sometimes wonder how much more successful I would have been as a coach had it not been for my spending summers on the golf course. I could have watched more film, that’s for sure. One advantage Joe Paterno had over me was that he didn’t play golf.

You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day.

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.

Your life must be a progression towards ownership – first mentally of your independence, and then physically of your work, owning what you produce.

Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can.

You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year.

Time is more valuable than money, because time is irreplaceable.

Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others.

That’s one of the biggest things. Never being home, always traveling, having different interests and focusing on different things, just the time aspect of going back home and seeing them, you don’t have that at all. It was a big sacrifice but, at the end of the day, it was worth it.

I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.

Better never than late.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

When you begin to worry, go find something to do. Get busy being a blessing to someone; do something fruitful. Talking about your problem or sitting alone, thinking about it, does no good; it serves only to make you miserable. Above all else, remember that worrying is totally useless. Worrying will not solve your problem.

Computers make me totally blank out.

I’m a slow worker; I’m, I think, a steady worker.

I’ve been on a calendar, but I’ve never been on time.

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.

I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.

Did you know there’s a difference between being busy and being fruitful? Did you ever stop to think that just being busy – running around in circles all day but not accomplishing anything – is the same as wasting your time? It’s frustrating to expend so much energy and time and not have any fruit from your effort!

All great achievements require time.

Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.

Either you run the day or the day runs you.

About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.

If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.

The kids are a big part of my schedule.

I have so many designs and video ideas and lyrics in my head, so I always try to be productive.

It usually helps me write by reading – somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.