Peter Bregman > Quotes

“To get the right things done, choosing what to ignore is as important as choosing where to focus.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“1. Leverage your strengths. 2. Embrace your weaknesses. 3. Assert your differences. 4. Pursue your passions.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Everyone is driven by three things: 1. Achievement (the desire to compete against increasingly challenging goals) 2. Affiliation (the desire to be liked/loved) 3. Power, expressed in one of two ways: Personalized (the desire for influence and respect for yourself) Socialized (the desire to empower others; to offer them influence and respect)”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Knowing what outcome you want will enable you to focus on what matters and escape the whirlwind of activity that too often leads nowhere fast.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Saying thank you is never a waste of time.”
― Peter Bregman, Four Seconds: All the Time You Need to Replace Counter-Productive Habits with Ones That Really Work – Simple Pause Techniques for Focus and Better Performance

“Being bored is a precious thing, a state of mind we should pursue. Once boredom sets in, our minds begin to wander, looking for something exciting, something interesting, to land on. And that’s where creativity arises. My”
― Peter Bregman, Four Seconds: All the Time You Need to Replace Counter-Productive Habits with Ones That Really Work – Simple Pause Techniques for Focus and Better Performance

“never quit a diet while reading the dessert menu.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“yourself how it’s changed and why that might mean your business strategy is off. Ask others to argue against you. Then listen instead of arguing.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“These two lists are your map for each day. Review them each morning, along with your calendar, and ask: What’s the plan for today? Where will I spend my time? How will it further my focus? How might I get distracted?”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction and Get the Right Things Done

“When an unsettling event occurs, pause before reacting. In that pause, ask yourself a single question: What is the outcome I want? Then, instead of reacting to the event, react to the outcome. In other words, stop reacting to the past and start reacting to the future.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Who among us does not move through life with the hidden sense, maybe even quiet desperation, that we are destined for more?”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“There’s so much to do,” she said, “that it’s hard to get anything done.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“If you take a breath and delay your action, you give the prefrontal cortex time to control the emotional response.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“But fitting in has the opposite effect. It makes you dispensable. If you’re like everyone else, then how critical to the business can you be?”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Instead of looking for how things are the same, we can look for how they are different. Instead of seeking evidence to confirm our perspectives, we can seek to shake them up. Instead of wanting to be right, we can want to be wrong. Of course, this takes a tremendous amount of confidence. Let’s face it, we’d all prefer to be right rather than wrong. But here’s the irony: The more you look to be wrong, the more likely you’ll end up right.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Don’t settle for being less than you are. It won’t serve others and it won’t serve you.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Plan your day ahead so you can fly through it, successfully maneuvering and moving toward your intended destination.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“the power of ritual. In Judaism, blessings are as plentiful as iPhone apps. Waking up? There’s a blessing for that.”
― Peter Bregman, Four Seconds: All the Time You Need to Replace Counter-Productive Habits with Ones That Really Work – Simple Pause Techniques for Focus and Better Performance

“if you believe your talent grows with persistence and effort, then you seek failure as an opportunity to improve. People with a growth mind-set feel smart when they’re learning, not when they’re flawless.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“There are two ways to address these regrets. One, work less hard and spend your time living a life true to yourself. Or two, work just as hard—harder even—on things that matter to you. On things that represent a life lived true to you. Something you consider to be important. Meaningful.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Somehow, I was missing that feeling of I’m doing the right things with the right people in the right way to make the most of who I am.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Reducing your forward momentum is the first step to freeing yourself from the beliefs, habits, feelings, and busyness that may be limiting you.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Where We Are Slow down your momentum. Pause in the moment. Stop to reset. Look around—beyond what you expect things to be—to see things as they really are. Expand your view of yourself. Be open to your extraordinary potential. Focus on your outcome. These behaviors—steps really—will help you see yourself, and the world, plainly and distinctly. They’ll send you up in the air to see what’s below more clearly. They’ll help you cut through your—and other people’s—unhelpful biases,”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Which has led me to believe that anyone can do anything. As long as three conditions exist: 1. You want to achieve it. 2. You believe you can achieve it. 3. You enjoy trying to achieve it.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“If we are to look back and feel good about what we’ve done—over a year, a day, or a moment—we need to break these patterns. To interrupt our inertia, everyday distractions, and gut responses. We need to intervene in our own lives.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Life, too, is a lot more fun when it’s interspersed with some resting. A short walk in the middle of your race. A pause. A breath. A moment to take stock. To realign your form. Your focus. Your purpose.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“You’ll never be as good a version of someone else as you are of yourself.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Gladwell refers to research done by the political scientist Ivan Arreguin-Toft, who looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years in which one side was at least ten times stronger than the other. He found that the weaker side won almost 30 percent of the time—a remarkable feat. The reason? They fought a different war than their opponents. The 70 percent that lost? They fought the conventional way; they engaged in battle using the same rules as their stronger opponents.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Observant Jews spend Shabbat praying, eating, walking, and spending time with family and friends. They’re on to something. This life is a marathon, not a sprint. In fact, each day is a marathon. Most of us don’t go to work for twenty minutes a day, run as fast as we can, and then rest until the next race. We go to work early in the morning, run as fast as we can for eight, ten, twelve hours, then come home and run hard again with personal obligations and sometimes more work, before getting some sleep and doing it all over again. That’s why I’m such a fanatic about doing work you love. But even if you love it, that kind of schedule is deeply draining. Not an athlete in the world could sustain that schedule without rest. Most athletes have entire off seasons. So if we’re running a daily marathon, it might help to learn something from people who train for marathons.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

“Ти людина багастороння. І бажано поєднувати усі свої цікавинки.
В житті важлива не одна ваша іпостась, а ви загалом. Чи не заперечуйте свої прояви. Інтегруйте їх.”
― Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done