57 Quotes from 15 secrets successful people know about Time Management by Kevin Kruse

''Actually, highly successful people don’t think about time much at all. Instead, they think about values, priorities, and consistent habits.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''SECRET #1

Time is your most valuable and scarcest resource.

How would your life change if each and every day you truly felt your 1,440 minutes?''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’SECRET #2

Identify your Most Important Task (MIT) and work on it each day before doing anything else.

So, what’s your one thing? What’s your MIT? ‘’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’SECRET #3

Work from your calendar, not a to-do list.

How much less stress would you feel if you could rip up your to-do list and work from your calendar?’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’SECRET #4

Procrastination can be overcome when you figure out how to beat your future self, who cannot be trusted to do the right thing.

You know what needs to get done this week; how will you ensure that you don’t put it off?’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’Highly successful people feel the passage of time. They know the potential that every minute holds.’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’When you wake up and subconsciously start the countdown—1440, 1439,1438—adopting the habits of highly successful people becomes very easy.’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’what is most important to you and what activity right now will provide the greatest leverage to getting there.’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Regardless of your focus areas, conventional wisdom dictates that your goal be specific and measurable. Instead of writing a goal to ‘save money,’ it should be something like ‘Save $5,000 by the end of the year.’ Instead of ‘lose weight,’ you would specify, ‘Lose ten pounds in ten weeks.’After identifying your most important goal, you need to identify which activities will lead to goal achievement and which activity is most important right now.''
― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''If you want to build great products, devote more than 50 percent of your work hours to product. Don't accept speaking opportunities if you can't justify them as benefitting your users or your company.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''One of the saddest mistakes in time management is the propensity of people to spend the two most productive hours of their day on things that don't require high cognitive capacity (like social media). If we could salvage those precious hours, most of us would be much more successful in accomplishing what we truly want.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Invest the first part of your day working on your number one priority that will help build your business.Do this without interruptions—no email or text—and before the rest of the world is awake.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’The first problem with recording tasks on a to-do list is that it doesn’t distinguish between items that take only a few minutes and items that require an hour or more. So when you randomly look at your list and ask, ‘Hmm, what should I tackle next?’ You are very likely going to pick the quick tasks, the easy items, not necessarily the thing that is most important. Second, and similar to the first problem, to-do lists make it really easy to work on the urgent instead of the important. That’s why I still have ‘Create annual family photo album for 2013’ still on my to-do list (from two years ago!). Do you know how many men have had ‘colonoscopy’ on their to-do list year after year?! Third, to-do lists cause unnecessary stress. Indeed, when we carry around a long list of undone items it’s one way to remember them. But it’s also a constant reminder, a constant nagging, that there are many things we still need to deal with. ‘’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’Highly successful people don’t have a to-do list, but they do have a very well-kept calendar. One of the most consistent messages I got from all the interviews and research I did for this book was that no matter what it is, if you truly want to get it done, schedule time for it.’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’First, schedule a chunk of time for everything that is important to you; this is called ‘time blocking’ or ‘time boxing.’ If you truly value being healthy and have decided that a 30-minute daily workout is your enabling goal,then don’t put it on your to-do list—put it on your calendar. Schedule it as a recurring appointment. If you value customer intimacy as a business strategy and have an enabling goal of talking to at least two customers a day, then schedule a daily appointment for ‘customer calls.’ Second, important items should be scheduled as early in the day as possible. Third, don’t cancel goals; reschedule them if necessary. For example, if you normally work out every day from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m.—during your lunch hour—but you have to be on an airplane on Monday traveling for work at noon,you would reschedule the exercise appointment for earlier or later in the day. Fourth, treat your time-blocked calendar entries as if they were appointments with your doctor; they are that important. Most of us cave in on our self-scheduled appointments too easily. If we time block 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.to work on an important report at the office, and then a colleague asks for 15 minutes of time because ‘something has come up I need to run by you,’ we reflexively say ‘sure,’ thinking we’ll finish the report in only 45 minutes, or we’ll stay 15 minutes later or adjust in some other way.But imagine if instead of working on a report you had an appointment with your doctor or dentist. Would you still agree to give away that time and show up for your doctor 15 minutes late? Of course not.’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Another way your calendar can become a powerful life-guiding tool is by using it to design your ideal week.Think about what your ideal workweek would look like…Regardless of your professional role, you may also find that your ideal week —and even ideal day—has some recurring personal things: exercise, time with your family, time to relax or to pursue hobbies. Mapping all of these items onto your calendar—and making them recurring appointments—is the right way to design your life. It’s a powerful way to stay consistent to those activities that give you the most return, and the most joy.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''When you master the practice of time blocking—using your calendar instead of your to-do-list—you can literally see your life’s priorities by looking at your weekly calendar.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Work from your calendar, not a to-do list.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management 

''To beat procrastination once and for all, you have to understand it. You don’t procrastinate because you’re lazy. You procrastinate because:

1. You lack enough motivation, and/or

2. You underestimate the power of present emotions versus future emotions when you set your goals or make your task list.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''One friend of mine goes to extreme measures to battle her five-minute future self! In pursuit of her health goals, whenever she eats out at a restaurant and they bring her a side of French fries, she immediately opens the salt shaker and dumps the entire thing on top of the fries. She has learned not to trust regular old willpower to not eat the fries. Her five-minutes-in-the-future self is likely to say,’ I’ll just have one.’ And we all know how that goes.How are you going to do battle with your future self?''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’Motivation comes down to pain and pleasure. For the tough tasks you always tend to procrastinate, think about and even visualize the ‘why’ behind them.

What pleasure will I get by doing this thing?

What pain will I feel if I don’t do it?’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''My childhood friend Curt grew up and became a sports psychologist. He tells me that the number one predictor of whether someone will stick to an exercise routine or not is whether they are doing it with someone else.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’Procrastination Buster #4: Reward and Punishment

Some people I know respond very well to bribes—even though they are the one in control of the bribe!One friend told herself she could buy a new pair of expensive shoes, but only after she paid off her credit cards. Another friend bought an excellent bottle of wine but wouldn’t drink it until he got down to a certain percentage of body fat.But in addition to the ‘carrot,’ don’t forget about the stick approach. Human psychology is such that we actually fear loss more than we want a gain. So instead of rewarding yourself for goal achievement, you can also punish yourself for goal failure.’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’Procrastination Buster #5: Act As If…

One unusual but very effective strategy is to self-talk yourself (out loud or in your head) as if you already were your ideal self.I am a healthy eater. I am a jogger. I am the #1 sales rep in my company. I am a neat person. I am a bestselling author. I am an entrepreneur.What this self-talk is doing is anchoring your values. If you are already a jogger, it will feel bad and unnatural not to go out jogging today. If you are a writer, of course you are going to sit and write at the computer today—it’s what writers do. If you are a healthy person, of course you’ll get a to-go salad at the airport instead of a slice of pizza.Just be who you want to become. It will then feel bad—it will be incongruent —not to do the task you might be tempted to procrastinate.’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Procrastination Buster #6: Settle For Good Enough

Sometimes we find it easy to start things, but we procrastinate finishing them.One trick to use is to just plan on settling for less than perfect.Procrastinating that three mile jog? Well, just suit up and go outside and agree to run around the block once…that will be good enough. And maybe it will be, or maybe once you’re done with the block you’ll keep going. Once you start something, once you agree that imperfect is OK, you’ll feel a stronger motivation to finish it up.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Andy Grove revealed this ultimate secret in his book High Output Management.My day ends when I’m tired and ready to go home, not when I’m done. I am never done. Like a housewife’s, a manager’s work is never done. There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Super successful people don’t just burn hour after hour trying to cross more items off their task list. Instead, they think through their priorities, schedule time for each, and then enough is enough.You are never too busy to make time for what you love. It’s just a matter of prioritizing—evaluating how you spend your days and dedicating time for what you value. If something is really important to you, you will find a way to fit it into your life.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

Accept the fact that there will always be more to do and more that can be done.

How much better will you feel when you finally accept the fact that you can’t do it all, because there will always be more that can be done?

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Self-made millionaire and legendary success coach Jim Rohn wrote and spoke frequently about the power of journaling.If you're serious about becoming a wealthy, powerful, sophisticated, healthy,influential, cultured, and unique individual, keep a journal. Keeping a journal is so important. I call it one of the three treasures to leave behind for the next generation…

The first treasure is your pictures. Take a lot of pictures...

The second treasure is your library. This is the library that taught you, that instructed you, that helped you … become wealthy, powerful, healthy, sophisticated, and unique…

The third treasure is your journals: the ideas that you picked up, the information that you meticulously gathered.

 But of the three, journal writing is one of the greatest indications that you're a serious student.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''SECRET #6

Always carry a notebook.

How much less stress will you feel when you begin to dump everything important into your notebook?''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''How can you empty your email inbox quickly and keep it from interfering with truly productive work?''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’SECRET #7

Email is a great way for other people to put their priorities into your life; control your inbox.

Are you ready to commit to checking email no more than three times a day?’’
― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

'' Never take meetings unless someone is writing a check.–Mark Cuban ''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’SECRET #8

Schedule and attend meetings as a last resort, when all other forms of communication won’t work.Look at the meetings on your calendar for the week ahead. How can you eliminate them or reduce their allotted time?’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''This is a lesson I even try to teach my kids: every yes is a no to something else.It’s not that they should say no to everything; it’s that they should think it through.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’SECRET #9

Say no to everything that doesn’t support your immediate goals.Which meetings, calls, and projects will you say no to in the upcoming weeks?’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''80 percent of results will come from just 20 percent of the action.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''The important takeaway from this chapter on the Pareto principle is not to run around with a calculator and actually do the math to figure out 80 percent and 20 percent calculations in different areas of your life.It’s more important to have a mindset of identifying the few things and activities that will give you outsized returns. You want to:

• Look for shortcuts.

• Do the most important things exceptionally well, and the rest just ‘good enough’ or not at all.

• Develop your skills to be exceptional in a few targeted areas; don’t try to master everything.

• Realize that you can work less, stress less, and increase your happiness by figuring out the 20 percent of goals and activities that are most important to you.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''SECRET #10

Eighty percent of outcomes are generated by twenty percent of activities.What 20 percent of your time generates 80 percent of your value?''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’Nothing will slow you down, take you off track, or keep you unproductive more than doing things which you both: do not like to do and are not good at. Anything that falls into that category must be outsourced to someone else (ideally who both likes it and has competence) as soon as possible. The extent to which you continue on those types of tasks is what will hold you back from truly loving what you're doing and also being fulfilled.–Andrea Waltz ‘’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Focus on what you are great at and hire everyone else to do the rest.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’SECRET #11

Focus your time only on things that utilize your unique strengths and passions. What are you going to outsource starting next week?’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’Renowned entrepreneur coach Dan Sullivan suggests that we theme every week around three different kinds of days:

Focus Days: “Game days” are to focus on our most important activities, typically revenue-producing activities. These are also the days when we should ideally be using our unique talents; do what you do best.

Buffer Days: These are days to catch up on emails and calls, hold internal meetings, delegate tasks, catch up on paperwork, and complete any training or educational activities that are related to work.

Free Days: These are days without any kind of work. These are days for vacation, fun, or perhaps charity. No work-related emails, calls, or thinking should be done on these days; it’s a time to rejuvenate.’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

SECRET #12

Batch your work with recurring themes for different days of the week.How much more productive would you be, how much less stress would you feel, if your days were organized to maximize your effectiveness?

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’Obviously, successful people don’t all follow the exact same routine, but it is amazing how you can easily identify consistent themes.

Most wake up early—6 a.m. or earlier.

They hydrate by drinking a lot of water.

They eat a healthy breakfast, although each has a different definition of healthy (e.g., fruit and oatmeal, green smoothie,protein, slow carb).

They exercise.

Many meditate, journal, or read.’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’SECRET #14

Invest the first 60 minutes of each day in rituals that strengthen your mind, body, and spirit.What time will you set your alarm clock, for tomorrow morning, so you’ll have time for your morning ritual?’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Don't sacrifice your sleep. Sooner or later, it will catch up with you. You won't perform at your best, and you will get sick.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

‘’In Write Better Faster, author Monica Leonelle shares how she went from being a 600-word-per-hour writer to a 3,500-word-per-hour writer. She learned that:

• When she repeated cycles of a 25-minute writing sprint followed by a 5-minute break, she achieved a 50 percent improvement in productivity. With these short recharging breaks, Leonelle was able to maintain a near state of flow for longer periods of time throughout the day.

• Her ailing wrists and fingers caused her to rethink her tools. She switched from keyboard typing to dictation and gained an additional 33 percent in word count.

• Once freed from the keyboard, Leonelle gained a final 25 percent improvement in word count when she began to dictate her novels while walking outside.

Leonelle didn’t have more hours to give, so she figured out how to increase her energy instead, and her productivity gains were the same as if she had ‘found’ six times more hours!’’

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Tony Schwartz, founder of The Energy Project, teaches that human beings are designed to 'pulse' between expending energy and renewing energy. His research shows that humans naturally move from full focus and energy to physiological fatigue every 90 minutes. Our body sends us signals to rest and renew, but we override them with coffee, energy drinks, and sugar or just by tapping our own reserves until they’re depleted.Schwartz suggests that we need to purposely take short breaks every 90 minutes throughout the day to drink water, walk, or to eat healthy snacks. His mantra is, 'Pulse and pause.' ''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Our cognitive capacity declines throughout the day;you must build in frequent mental breaks to recharge and maintain productivity.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''The biggest way to increase your overall energy levels is of course to take care of your health. You already know this, but keys to productivity include:

• Getting enough sleep

• Minimizing alcohol

• Minimizing caffeine, especially late in the day

• Eating more whole foods and fewer processed foods

• Maintaining a healthy weight

• Drinking a lot of water

• Exercising daily (a 20-minute power walk counts!)''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''SECRET #15

Productivity is about energy and focus, not time. How will you increase your energy tomorrow?''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''The basic principle of time management is as follows: do one thing, and one thing only until it is finished, then move on. This means put your phone away so texting, Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram aren't distracting you while doing homework.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Tips and tricks you can use to save time.

Always cook more than one meal at a time.

Off-load your memory with your camera phone.

Mute your phone and shut off all notifications.

Drink a healthy protein shake for breakfast.

Never watch live TV. Why? Because of the commercials.

Don’t watch TV at all!

Use your drive time wisely.

Never call people without setting an appointment ahead of time (unless it’s social, of course).

Avoid busy times out in the real world if at all possible.

Use dual monitors.

Have a stop doing list.

Remind people of the ‘end time.’

Hang out with productive people.

Tell people around you to leave you alone.

Buy birthday cards by the dozen.

Pay bills electronically

Never answer a call from an unknown number.

Get a business coach, mentor, or mastermind group.

Release your content through multiple channels

Know that done is better than perfect.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Give yourself play rewards. Time management is mostly about staying focused--when we're playing a game we like, we're not tempted to be distracted.Knowing that we have a reward coming up, like video games, a show, or social time, is not only motivating, but it gives us a clear light at the end of the tunnel that keeps us from the malaise of feeling like we're trapped in work.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''Outsource the problem to your subconscious. The verbal, conscious brain forms pretty strong habit patterns. To alter the thinking paths, to solve really challenging problems, the brain needs to deploy its diverse functionality—different networks, different parts, different associations. Once you have the information you need, the foundation for creative thinking is established, then you can often trust the subconscious to use its untapped horsepower to provide solutions. Walk away from the problem and trust that your deeper mind and body will show up and offer a response.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''The most important Time Management strategy I have discovered is investing 1% of your day in scheduling the next day's activities. That is only 14 minutes a day. Surely investing 14 minutes before bed is a very beneficial habit.Scheduling the next day, just before going to bed, has a couple of time saving benefits.1. Your next day's activities will be prioritized, knowing what needs to be accomplished. 2. Your mind is relaxed, and you are much less apt to toss and turn trying to go to sleep, thinking about all the stuff you need to do. 3. Your subconscious mind is working while you sleep on the best methods to achieve completion of your tasks. 4. It's been said that investing 14 minutes in scheduling, creates an extra 56 minutes of productivity in your day. Extra productivity, extra and better sleep, peace of mind, and focused attention are all available in investing 1% of your day in prioritizing the next day's revenue and goal accomplishing activities.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

''The best way to effectively manage your time is not spend any of it on things you don't want to do and you aren't good at. It's amazing how time-efficient you can be when you are doing what you love and the opposite is even more true. Build up your skills in delegation and automation so you don't have to do work you don't want to do. Make sure there is enough underlying profit in your business model to support hiring people to replace you. From there just work on things you love, it won't feel like work and you won't be watching the clock. But if you did you'd notice you work a whole lot faster and more productively.''

― Kevin Kruse, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management