As the productivity queen that I am, I couldn’t not write a post about productivity quotes.
I promise you, productivity is not a swear word, and if you learn to do it the right way, you’ll be able to save yourself so much time, find a better work-life balance, and improve your overall life.
I decided to do a round-up of the best productivity quotes out there, shared from successful people of all different backgrounds and experiences, so you can truly feel inspired and motivated to get things done.
Feel free to write down your favourite ones and put them in a place where you can always see them boost your motivation daily.
50 productivity quotes for motivation and success
Table of Contents
- “Focus on being productive instead of busy.” -Tim Ferriss
2. “Action is the foundational key to all success.” -Pablo Picasso
3. “It’s not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less.” -Nathan W. Morris
4. “There’s a tendency to mistake preparation for productivity. You can prepare all you want, but if you never roll the dice you’ll never be successful.” -Shia LaBeouf
5. “Don’t worry about breaks every 20 minutes ruining your focus on a task. Contrary to what I might have guessed, taking regular breaks from mental tasks actually improves your creativity and productivity. Skipping breaks, on the other hand, leads to stress and fatigue.” -Tom Rath
6. “What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50 per cent.” -Susan Cain
7. “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” -Martin Luther King
8. “Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes in a day.” -Denis Waitley
9. “Simplicity boils down to two steps: Identify the essential. Eliminate the rest.” -Leo Babauta
10. “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” – Paul J. Meyer
11. “Don’t confuse activity with productivity. Many people are simply busy being busy.” – Robin Sharma
12. “Where your attention goes, your time goes” – Idowu Koyenikan
13. “Multitasking is a lie” – Gary Keller
14. “Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.” – Gretchen Rubin
15. “Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, and carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the ‘someday I’ll’ philosophy.” – Denis Waitley
16. “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right!” – Henry Ford
17. “Nothing is particularly hard when you divide it into small jobs.” – Henry Ford
18. “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” – Stephen King
19. “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” – Mark Twain
20. “Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone.” – Robert Allen
21. “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin
22. “Successful people are simply those with successful habits.” – Brian Tracy
23. “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” – Bruce Lee
24. “Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.” – Peter Drucker
25. “You don’t need more time in your day. You need to decide.” – Seth Godin
26. “Consistency of performance is essential. You don’t have to be exceptional every week but as a minimum you need to be at a level that even on a bad day you get points on the board.” – Sean Dyche
27. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” -Walt Disney
28. “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” -Norman Vincent Peale
29. “My goal is no longer to get more done, but rather to have less to do.” ― Francine Jay
30. “Don’t think about what can happen in a month. Don’t think about what can happen in a year. Just focus on the 24 hours in front of you and do what you can to get closer to where you want to be.” ― Eric Thomas
31. “If you have time to whine then you have time to find a solution.” ― Dee Dee Artner
32. “Sometimes the biggest gain in productive energy will come from cleaning the cobwebs, dealing with old business, and clearing the desks—cutting loose debris that’s impeding forward motion.” ― David Allen
33. “Anything we do that has no clarity within us, or that is not particularly fulfilling, becomes another box to tick; another “should, have to, must” of life. In this day and age, who needs a longer to-do list?” ― Aline Ra M
34. “Excuses and productivity repel each other.” ― Janna Cachola
35. “It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”– Henry David Thoreau
36. “Make each day your masterpiece.”– John Wooden
37. “Position yourself to succeed by doing the other things in your life that rejuvenate you. Exhaustion affects your quality and productivity.”– Jeff VanderMeer
38. “You can’t get much done in life if you only work on days when you feel good.”– Jerry West
39. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”– Amelia Earhart
40. “Everyday that I procrastinate, every day that I sit stagnant in fear, every day that I fail to better myself, someone else out there with the same goals and dreams as me is doing the exact opposite.”– Noel DeJesus
41. “Someday is not a day of the week.”– Janet Dailey
42. “A year from now you may wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb
43. “You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.”– George Lorimer
44. “Your daily choices and actions should be rational and productive.”– Sunday Adelaja
45. “Good well-being promotes good productivity.”– Lailah Gifty Akita
46. “Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.” -Tim Ferriss
47. “Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.” -Abraham Lincoln
48. “Effective performance is preceded by painstaking preparation.” -Brian Tracy
49. “Happen to things, don’t let things happen to you.” -Stephen Covey
50. “Let today be the day you give up who you’ve been for who you can become.” -Hal Elrod
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Final thoughts of 50 productivity quotes for motivation and success
I hope these quotes will inspire you and motivate you. You are meant for greatness, and no matter what your goals are, if you work hard for them, you’re intentional and disciplined, you will achieve them and see the results you desire. Let me know in the comments which one was your favourite productivity quote!
