Chris

“Rilke used to say that no poet would mind going to gaol, since he would at least have time to explore the treasure house of his memory. In many respects Rilke was a prick.”
― Clive James, Unreliable Memoirs

“Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster. Nobody in the history of humanity has ever achieved “work-life balance,” whatever that might be, and you certainly won’t get there by copying the “six things successful people do before 7:00 a.m.” The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control—when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about. Let’s start by admitting defeat: none of this is ever going to happen. But you know what? That’s excellent news.”
― Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

“If you believe that the primary reason that people fail to meet goals has to do more with them than you, then you should not be in the business of supervising, developing, or leading people.”
― Paul L. Marciano, Carrots and Sticks Don't Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles of RESPECT

“The most common reason that employees fail to meet performance expectations is that those expectations were never made clear in the first place.”
― Paul L. Marciano, Carrots and Sticks Don't Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles of RESPECT