101 Productivity Quotes to Keep You Inspired at Work

Being productive at work means getting more things done in less time. One of the best productivity motivators is inspiration, but it’s not easy to get inspired while working from an office or even from home. That’s when productivity quotes come into play.

We’ve picked 101 productivity quotes that we hope will inspire and motivate you to accomplish more.

But remember, no single quote will help you overcome unproductivity overnight. Be patient, it takes time, but you will definitely get there. 

Although, we do have something that will help with your productivity sooner than you think and might even work its magic overnight. Sign up on Chanty for free and improve your productivity by 55% with better collaboration and communication.

Let’s begin with my favorite productivity quotes:

1. “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” – Aristotle
2. “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” – Sir Edmund Hillary
3. “Lost time is never found again.” – Benjamin Franklin
4. Time is the school in which we learn, time is the fire in which we burn.” – Delmore Schwartz
5. “No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” – Warren Buffett
6. “Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.” – Franz Kafka
7.  “If there are nine rabbits on the ground, if you want to catch one, just focus on one.” – Jack Ma
8. “You may delay, but time will not.” – Benjamin Franklin
9. “The tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.” – Benjamin E. Mays
10. “If you are interested in balancing work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable.” – Donald Trump
11. “Both good and bad days should end with productivity. Your mood affairs should never influence your work.” – Greg Evans
12. “When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
13. “Focus on being productive instead of busy.” -Tim Ferriss
14.  “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” – Paul J. Meyer
15.  “Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.” – Peter Drucker

You are welcome to take Chanty’s productivity course to maximize your effectiveness at work.

16. “Time is not refundable; use it with intention.” – Unknown
17. “You don’t get paid for the hour, you get paid for the value you bring to the hour.” – Jim Rohn
18.  “Don’t confuse activity with productivity. Many people are simply busy being busy.” – Robin Sharma
19.  “If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” – Thomas Edison
20. “There is never enough time to do it right, but there is always enough time to do it over.” – John W. Bergman
21.  “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
22. “You don’t need a new plan for next year. You need a commitment.” – Seth Godin
23. “Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.” – Peter Drucker
24. “Where your attention goes, your time goes”. – Idowu Koyenikan
25.  “Time management is about life management.” -Idowu Koyenikan
26.  “You can do anything, but not everything.” – David Allen
27. “Think of many things; do one.” ~ Portuguese proverb
28.  “I always had the uncomfortable feeling that if I wasn’t sitting in front of a computer typing, I was wasting my time – but I pushed myself to take a wider view of what was ‘productive.’ Time spent with my family and friends was never wasted.” – Gretchen Rubin
29. “Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.” – Caterina Fake
30.  “There is no substitute for hard work.” – Thomas Edison

31. “Never mistake motion for action.” – Ernest Hemingway
32. “Multitasking is a lie” – Gary Keller
33. “The key to productivity is to rotate your avoidance techniques.” – Shannon Wheeler
34. “While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.” – Henry C. Link
35. “What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50 percent.” – Susan Cain 
36.  “Productivity is the deliberate, strategic investment of your time, talent, intelligence, energy, resources, and opportunities in a manner calculated to move you measurably closer to meaningful goals.” – Dan S. Kennedy
37.  “Sameness leaves us in peace but it is contradiction that makes us productive.” – Johnann Wolfgang von Goethe
38. “Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.” – Gretchen Rubin
39.  “Knowledge is the source of wealth. Applied to tasks we already know, it becomes productivity. Applied to tasks that are new, it becomes innovation.” – Peter Drucker
40. “If you want an easy job to seem mighty hard, just keep putting if off.” – Richard Miller
41. “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
42. “Work hard, have fun, and make history.” – Jeff Bezos
43. “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
44. “I do not equate productivity to happiness. For most people, happiness in life is a massive amount of achievement plus a massive amount of appreciation. And you need both of those things.” – Tim Ferriss
45.  “Creativity isn’t about wild talent as much as it’s about productivity. To find new ideas that work, you need to try a lot that don’t. It’s a pure numbers game.” – Robert Sutton
46.  “Productivity growth, however it occurs, has a disruptive side to it. In the short term, most things that contribute to productivity growth are very painful.” – Janet Yellen
47. “If you want something done, give it to a busy man.” – Preston Sturges
48.  “The really happy people are those who have broken the chains of procrastination, those who find satisfaction in doing the job at hand. They’re full of eagerness, zest, and productivity. You can be, too.” – Norman Vincent Peale
49. “The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.” – Thomas Sowell
50. “The only way around is through.” – Robert Frost

51.  “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin
52.  “Improved productivity means less human sweat, not more.” – Henry Ford
53.  “It’s not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less.” – Nathan W. Morris
54. “You must remain focused on your journey to greatness.” – Les Brown
55.  “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right!” – Henry Ford
56.  “Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.” – Charles Richards
57.  “The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.” – Oprah Winfrey
58.  “Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.” – Coco Chanel
59. “The true price of anything you do is the amount of time you exchange for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
60. “Ordinary people think merely of spending time, great people think of using it.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
61. “Drive thy business or it will drive thee.” – Benjamin Franklin
62.  “Nothing is particularly hard when you divide it into small jobs.” – Henry Ford
63. “Soon is not as good as now.” – Seth Godin
64.  “Sometimes, things may not go your way, but the effort should be there every single night.” – Michael Jordan 
65. “Stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.” – Paul Gauguin
66.  “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King
67. Life’s gardeners pluck the weeds and care only for the productive plants.” – Bryant McGill
68.  “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson
69.  “All our productivity, leverage, and insight comes from being part of a community, not apart from it. The goal, I think, is to figure out how to become more dependent, not less.” – Seth Godin
70.  Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work. – Stephen King
71.  By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. – Benjamin Franklin
72.  Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. – Alexander Graham Bell
73. Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection. – Mark Twain

74. Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves. – Dale Carnegie
75.  Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone. – Robert Allen
76.  I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks, but I do fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. – Bruce Lee
77.  If you don’t pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves. – David Allen
78.  If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done. – Bruce Lee
79. Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. – Jim Rohn
80. Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway. – Earl Nightingale
81.  Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all. – Peter Drucker
82. Plans are nothing; planning is everything. – Dwight D. Eisenhower 
83. Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good. – Malcolm Gladwell
84. Successful people are simply those with successful habits. – Brian Tracy
85. The key is to not prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities. – Stephen Covey
86.  What gets measured gets managed. – Peter Drucker
87. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. – Stephen hawking
88. Work like there is someone working twenty-four hours a day to take it all away from you. – Mark Cuban
89. You can’t have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage worth ethic. – Stephen Hogan
90. You don’t need more time in your day. You need to decide. – Seth Godin
91. Fall in love with the process, and the results will come. – Eric Thomas
92. You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win. – Zig Ziglar
93. Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them. – David Allen
94.  Don’t expect to find you’re doing everything right — the truth often hurts. The goal is to find your inefficiencies in order to eliminate them and to find your strengths so you can multiply them. – Tim Ferriss
95. Effective performance is preceded by painstaking preparation. – Brian Tracy
96.  Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. – Francis of Assisi
97.  Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in getting up every time we do. – Confucius
98.  If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves. – Thomas Edison
99.  To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking. – Goethe
100. You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them. – Michael Jordan
101. 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
102. Productivity is not about getting everything done, rather it is about getting things done effectively – Brianna Gray from fixthephoto.com

5 key takeaways from productivity quotes:

• It’s easier to be productive if you enjoy what you do.
• Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, who don’t take risks, never win.
• Time flies so fast, to get more productive you need to learn how to manage your time efficiently.
• We learn as long as we live.
• If you have a dream, do your best and work hard towards it.