Sadie Jones Quotes

If you ask people where they go when they really need to get work done, very few will respond 'the office.' If they do say the office, they'll include a qualifier such as 'super-early in the morning before anyone gets in,' or 'I stay late at night after everyone's left,' or 'I sneak in on the weekend.'

My house in Connecticut is very quiet, and when I'm trying to concentrate, I don't even allow the cat inside my second-floor study.

I have a gorgeous office at home but tend not to write there because there are so many distractions.

If I'm not at my study by 10:00, 10:30, forget it, I can't write a word.

If I'm really under pressure to get work done, I can adapt to most situations, but I prefer to be at home, in a comfortable chair, with as few distractions as possible.

Open office plans, cell phones, constant notifications: these are all things that fight against sustained attention on a task. For some people and some tasks, that doesn’t matter. But for a lot of important work, it matters a lot.

I'm focussing on what I haven't attained, not what I have. A lot has come to me early. I don't want to get consumed with that. Winners live in the present tense. People who come up short are consumed with future or past. I want to be living in the now. My goal is to play one full game in the now, but I haven't even gotten past the first inning yet. I start thinking about where my mom is or if my dogs have been fed. The average human has 2,000 thoughts a day. The really accomplished have 1,500 because you can focus longer. I need to learn how to focus longer.

The ability to focus on a single task for an extended period is a talent that’s underappreciated - especially by extroverts, who continue to exercise an unhealthy hegemony over most workplaces.

Good performance is about the capacity to focus and concentrate.

I find it so easy to get distracted - I try not to do more than one thing at any one time.

I'll read anything. In fact, I'll read while I'm doing other things, which is not a good idea.

There are always distractions, if you allow them.

The one thing that I appear to have been given, bearing in mind that I am capable of being very, very scatty and extremely lazy, is the ability to concentrate on something I choose to give my time to.

If I know somebody is coming 'round, it is incredibly difficult for me to work because I'm waiting for this interruption - even the children's comings and goings are interruptions. Cake-making is a good way of coming out of that space.

I just try to concentrate on concentrating.

I tend to write in coffee shops and restaurants with friends of mine because if I'm at home, I get distracted by the television or the cats or my husband, or... you know - all of those things that make it easy to procrastinate.

One way to boost our will power and focus is to manage our distractions instead of letting them manage us.

The more you focus, the more that focus becomes a habit.

I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.

The habits of study in which I have been brought up have done much to support me. I never allow myself to be one moment unoccupied.

I would have to say I was an excellent student. I was the type to always do my homework and study when I needed to. I never really partied or did anything like that.

When I'm the happiest, my desk is not neat. It has lots of pens and the books I love. It gets messy when I'm in the flow. So many houses are so neat.

I was way too hyperactive to study for long. I would freak out, then crash, then be too tired to read or write. I really should have had less sugar.

There's something to be said in favor of working in isolation in the real world.

Working in an office with an array of electronic devices is like trying to get something done at home with half a dozen small children around. The calls for attention are constant.