Your ability to plan, both in the management of time and in the organization of procedures and programs, will play a huge role in the degree of success you attain.
Examine the periods of the day when you are most creative. If your most productive hours are early in the morning, for instance, it is foolish to spend them reading trade magazines. Do that in your "dry" hours-say, immediately after lunch, you must, of course, be flexible about times for conferences, but try to keep them at one period instead of scattered throughout the day.
One wise executive keeps his door shut in the morning, leaving instructions not to be disturbed except in extreme emergency; but in the afternoon anyone, even those in the lowliest positions, can walk in unannounced. In this way he remains easily accessible and at the same time can have four hours of uninterrupted work.
Organizing and outlining can be an immeasurable help in many activities. Staff meetings are one of the major showcases of your ability, and an important rule to remember is that the man who has prepared and organized is the one who will run the meeting-no matter who is theoretically in charge. Being more organized than those above you and having planned and outlined when they have not are excellent methods of taking over more responsibility and power.
Experts on Planning
There is danger when a man throws his tongue into high gear before he gets his brain a-going. C. C. Phelps
Concentration is my motto-first honesty, then industry, then concentration. Andrew Carnegie
One well-cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth 100 shallow faculties. The first law of success in this day, when so many things are clamoring for attention, is concentration-to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor to the left. William Matthews
There is no easy method of learning difficult things. The method is to close the door, give out that you are not at home, and work. Joseph de Maistre
Rapidity does not always mean progress, and hurry is akin to waste. The old fable of the hare and the tortoise is just as good now, and just as true, as when it was first written. C. A. Stoddard
If necessary, stand on the street corner, cap in hand like a mendicant, and beg all the passers-by for the seconds and minutes and hours and days they waste. M. Lincoln Schuster
I think business has to be guided by military history. You've got to plan campaigns and strategies. It's just the same in business; you've got to plan for all the things that can go wrong. The only difference is there is good history on military situations. And I think most military history would show that the decisions in a military campaign can't be made by committees. Of course, every general is bound and limited by the resources at his disposal, and his staff may lay out the details, but the most successful military campaigns have been made by one man. Look at the Civil War, for example. The general strategy was laid down by the government, but until they got Grant nobody could do anything. J. Paul Getty
Two things are as big as the man who possesses them-neither bigger nor smaller. One is a minute, the other a dollar. Channing Pollack
With some people you spend time; with others you invest it. Anon.
The purpose of learning to employ every minute properly is to unclutter your hours, deliver us of feverish activity and earn us true leisure. Robert R. Updegraff
Qualifications for success: First is a big wastebasket. You must know what to eliminate. Second, it is as important to know what to preserve. Third, it is important to know when to say "no." Four, developing the power to say "no" gives us the capacity to say "yes." A. P. Gouthey
One of the best lessons that anyone can learn in life is how to use time wisely. Consider what can be done in ten minutes. If you need a little mental relaxation, you can sit down with a friend and play a game of cards. If you need some physical recreation, you engage in a few exercises that will help tone up your body. Perhaps you have a friend who for weeks or months has been looking for a letter. Then there may be among your acquaintances someone whose friendship you would value highly and whose counsel would be profitable. Learn to use ten minutes intelligently. It will pay huge dividends. William A. Irwin
The man who saves time by galloping loses it by missing his way; the shepherd who hurries his flock to get them home spends the night on the mountain looking for the lost; economy does not consist in haste, but in certainty. Ramsay MacDonald
A career, like a business, must be budgeted. When it is necessary, the budget can be adjusted to meet changing conditions. A life that hasn't a definite plan is likely to become driftwood. David Sarnoff
Henry Ford had no use for a private office in his company's administration building. The reason: I can get out of the other fellow's office a lot faster than I can get him out of mine.
A program lives today and dies tomorrow. A mind, if it be open, may change with each new day, but the spirit and the heart are as unchanging as the tides. Owen D. Young
Most men talk too much. Much of my success has been due to keeping my mouth shut. J. Ogden Armour
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. Shakespeare
