We all have distractions as Conservative MP Nigel Mills highlighted by being spotted playing Candy Crush during a Parliamentary Commons Committee debate at the end of last year. ** All motivation is internal. We can have bosses shouting at us, customers complaining, families disowning us and police investigating your museum accounts, but all that is meaningless unless you find the motivation within yourself to get on with things.
Fortunately for us Harold Bloom the Sterling Professor Emeritus at Yale University compiled a brief list of what he called “thought productivity nuggets” from history.
1. “Think not long, but do; do not long, but think.” --Confucius
2. “There is nothing wrong with complaining about work; but do the work first, and then the complaints will be all the more worthy to be heeded.” --Socrates
3. “Never hitch a pig to a plough or expect an ox to provide bacon.” --Virgil
Confucius and Socrates are clearly sensible productive men. Virgil was clearly an idiot and I will never look at his 'Aeneid' again in the same light.
In a more modern context Ofir Sahar is the chief digital strategist of Cogniview, (apparently the company converts PDF files to Excel - who would have thought that as a job 30 years ago). He has also collected productivity quotes from the less intellectual figures that show-biz provides:
4. “You may catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but you’ll get them to work harder if you use a flyswatter.” --Jerry Lewis
5. “Measure twice; cut once.” --Harrison Ford
6. “Measure results, not hours.” --Emma Thompson
It seems Jerry Lewis deserved his 'hard task master' reputation, Mr. Ford is betraying his background as a carpenter and/or his wooden acting technique, whereas Emma Thompson's attitude explains the large budgets needed to make feature films.
Now a couple of heavyweights, Tim Cook is CEO of Apple and the young tyro Donald Trump is now a prospective US President.
7. “The longer the meeting, the less is accomplished.” --Tim Cook
8. “I use my brain as a playground, not as a calendar.” --Donald Trump (does that explain his hairstyle?)
Apparently Cook will not hold a staff meeting longer than 10 minutes (it takes that long to argue over the biscuits in my organisation) and Donald Trump doesn't spend more than 10 minutes combing his wig which is why they are both very productive individuals.
So what have we learnt from all this? How can I be more productive? Well you can you can think about complaining whilst eating a curiously tasting bacon butty - that's how the ancients did it apparently. Or you can take forever whilst beating people with a stick, which is the Hollywood method. Or never spend more than 10 minutes doing anything to be more productive in business. The choice is yours.
*http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/productivity - it has subsequently recovered so I might not be to blame after all.
1. “Think not long, but do; do not long, but think.” --Confucius
2. “There is nothing wrong with complaining about work; but do the work first, and then the complaints will be all the more worthy to be heeded.” --Socrates
3. “Never hitch a pig to a plough or expect an ox to provide bacon.” --Virgil
Confucius and Socrates are clearly sensible productive men. Virgil was clearly an idiot and I will never look at his 'Aeneid' again in the same light.
In a more modern context Ofir Sahar is the chief digital strategist of Cogniview, (apparently the company converts PDF files to Excel - who would have thought that as a job 30 years ago). He has also collected productivity quotes from the less intellectual figures that show-biz provides:
4. “You may catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but you’ll get them to work harder if you use a flyswatter.” --Jerry Lewis
5. “Measure twice; cut once.” --Harrison Ford
6. “Measure results, not hours.” --Emma Thompson
It seems Jerry Lewis deserved his 'hard task master' reputation, Mr. Ford is betraying his background as a carpenter and/or his wooden acting technique, whereas Emma Thompson's attitude explains the large budgets needed to make feature films.
Now a couple of heavyweights, Tim Cook is CEO of Apple and the young tyro Donald Trump is now a prospective US President.
7. “The longer the meeting, the less is accomplished.” --Tim Cook
8. “I use my brain as a playground, not as a calendar.” --Donald Trump (does that explain his hairstyle?)
Apparently Cook will not hold a staff meeting longer than 10 minutes (it takes that long to argue over the biscuits in my organisation) and Donald Trump doesn't spend more than 10 minutes combing his wig which is why they are both very productive individuals.
So what have we learnt from all this? How can I be more productive? Well you can you can think about complaining whilst eating a curiously tasting bacon butty - that's how the ancients did it apparently. Or you can take forever whilst beating people with a stick, which is the Hollywood method. Or never spend more than 10 minutes doing anything to be more productive in business. The choice is yours.
*http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/productivity - it has subsequently recovered so I might not be to blame after all.
**http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/6162232/VIDEO-Tory-MP-Nigel-Mills-caught-playing-Candy-Crush-during-key-Commons-meeting.html
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