Getting Things Done Quotes

Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does.

In order to be a winner, you have to look for ways of getting things done and not for reasons why things can’t be done. People who live with excuses have things that can’t be done hovering around them all the time.

The whole point of getting things done is knowing what to leave undone.

Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.

You don't actually do a project; you can only do action steps related to it. When enough of the right action steps have been taken, some situation will have been created that matches your initial picture of the outcome closely enough that you can call it "done.

You don't actually do a project; you can only do action steps related to it.

you don't have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great.

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.

Just because you are struggling does NOT mean you are failing. Every great success requires some kind of struggle to get there.

The real world doesn't reward perfectionists. It rewards people who get things done.

Artists are people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done.

The key to Operations at Wal-Mart is their ability to maintain the highest standards while at the same time getting things done with lockstep execution.

The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think.

My definition of an executive's job is brief and to the point. It is simply this: Getting things done through other people.

Things rarely get stuck because of lack of time. They get stuck because the doing of them has not been defined.

Ego stops you from getting things done and getting people to work with you. That's why I firmly believe that ego and success are not compatible.

What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.

What you do every day matters more than what you do every once in a while. Read The Power of Habit.

No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn't trying.

If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse.

The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them.

We are about getting things done. We are not about the blame game. We are not about making excuses.

I'm dealing with my drinking problem and I have a reputation for getting things done.

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen has been the Queensland premier the whole time we've been in Australia, and the state is a national joke for having a Deep North government thats said to resemble governments of a generation or more ago in some parts of the US Deep South - governments that always talk about getting things done and never talk about rights.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

Getting things done in this country, if you want to build something, if you want to start a company, it's getting to be virtually impossible with all of the bureaucracy and all of the approvals.

The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.

You've got to think about big things while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.

We're the end of the baby boomers, and we participated in many social changes. Who would of thought, for example, when the AIDS epidemic came along that so many would die, because it was gay people dying. And what emerged was a grassroots movement that developed, and succeeded in getting things done. The pinpointing of that movement evolved into the changes that we have today.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.

Was it possible that a bustling display of energy might only be a camouflage for a spiritual vacuum? The thought so impressed me that I mentioned it next day to the French purser, at whose table I was sitting. He nodded his agreement. "Stevenson is right," he said. "Indeed, if you will pardon my saying so, the idea applies particularly to you Americans. A lot of your countrymen keep so busy getting things done that they reach the end of their lives without ever having lived at all."

Most people feel best about their work the week before their vacation, but it's not because of the vacation itself. What do you do the last week before you leave on a big trip? You clean up, close up, clarify, and renegotiate all your agreements with yourself and others. I just suggest that you do this weekly instead of yearly.

Vision is about more than just getting things done, accomplishing some task, achieving something; it is about discovering and expanding our view of others, affirming them, believing in them, and helping them discover and realize the potential within them-helping them find their own voice.

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

All growth starts at the end of your comfort zone.

Use your mind to think about things, rather than think of them. You want to be adding value as you think about projects and people, not simply reminding yourself they exist.

Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.

The secret of getting things done is to act!

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.

I would say act like a man of thought and think like a man of action.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started

We are what we do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act,  but a habit.

It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.

I have the good fortune of working with two brothers who are very accomplished, incredibly smart, and very capable. So thankfully there is not an issue in that regard where somebody isn't pulling their own weight. We collaborate all the time. We tend to take different paths, but we tend to reach very similar conclusions. It's actually great because it allows us to be much more creative in the process of getting things done.

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.

All of Robert Caro's biographies are exceptional, in part because of Caro's fundamental ambivalence about power. He sees its necessity and use for getting things done, even as he is often repelled by watching power at close range. His masterpiece on Robert Moses, The Power Broker, describes the evolution of Moses from idealist to pragmatist as he became one of the most powerful figures in the 20th century.