I’m not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar. So when I walk up to my desk, I can focus on the e-mails I’ve flagged and check the folders that are monitoring particular projects and particular blogs.

Energy begets energy.

If I’ve got something do. I’m going to attack it. I’m going to attack that stress.

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

If you’re going to wake up early all the time, and you’re working hard, and you’re working out, sometimes you’re going to get tired. It’s OK. It’s acceptable – somewhat. We’re all human, unfortunately.

A man is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them.

Before beginning, plan carefully.

I have just returned from visiting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world!

Getting out of bed is like the foundation of the discipline, and I think it carries over into everything else.

Getting organized in the normal routines of life and finishing little projects you’ve started is an important first step toward realizing larger goals. If you can’t get a handle on the small things, how will you ever get it together to focus on the big things?

You should not build your customer service system on the premise that your organisation will never question the whims of your clients.

First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.

My theory is 98 percent of all human endeavor is killing time.

Writing is fun – at least mostly. I write for four hours every day. After that I go running. As a rule, 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). That’s easy to manage.

I have rooms full of little dongly things and don’t want any more. Half the little dongly things I’ve got, I don’t even know what gizmo they’re for. More importantly, half the gizmos I’ve got, I don’t know where their little dongly thing is.

I just hate meetings. Though it’s true that once you’ve made a lot of money, people around you might be full of ideas about ways to make lots more money and might be disappointed that you don’t want to seize every opportunity to do so.

Plans are nothing; planning is everything.

Well, I’m working all the time to stay out of trouble!

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

Computers make me totally blank out.

The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.

Why do people sit up so late, or, more rarely, get up so early? Not because the day is not long enough, but because they have no time in the day to themselves.

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

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.

I’d have to be superman to do some of the things I’m supposed to have done, I’ve been at six different places at six different times.

It is very difficult to get people to focus on the most important things when you’re in boom times.

Outlook 2003 did create the idea of search folders and the whole Longhorn philosophy. You can see it at work in search folders, where instead of having to drop things into individual folders, and things exist only in one folder, you create these search folders and you have the criteria for the search folder.

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.

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!

The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.

I’m never any good in the morning. It is only after four in the afternoon that I get going.

I like to do things quickly because I’m easily bored.

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.

Working with a lot of people at the same time is a task. I really like making stuff and getting stuff done. One of the things I really liked about Facebook was that I could always move so quickly. I wrote the original application in, like, nine days at the end of January.

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

Large organization is loose organization. Nay, it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization.

Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.

It’s pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious.

Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.

My strong point, if I have a strong point, is performance. I always do more than I say. I always produce more than I promise.

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

Never confuse motion with action.

We must use time creatively.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

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

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

A little over 5% of the world’s population produces almost 29% of the world’s goods and services.

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

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

You can’t think; you just gotta do things.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.

I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.

There can be economy only where there is efficiency.

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.