Henry James Quotes

If you wait until you feel like doing something, you will likely never accomplish it.

I don't wait for moods - you'd never get anything done if you did.

Memorize the selfstarter DO IT NOW! DO IT NOW! can affect every phase of your life. It can help you do the things you should do but don't feel like doing. It can keep you from procrastinating when an unpleasant duty faces you. But it can also help you do those things that you want to do. It helps you seize those precious moments that, if lost, may never be retrieved.

The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.

I discovered that the best thing for me was to be very busy all the time. I can get a lot done, and I can do those tasks well.

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.

I crave deadlines. If I don't have a deadline, I become a total slacker, which is why I always have so much on my plate.

I used to delay doing stuff that I just didn't want to deal with - things like putting the garden hose away properly or doing the dishes right after dinner. Now I have this little voice in my head that says, 'I know you don't want to do this, but just do it anyway.' In other words, there's far less stuff that I put off until tomorrow.

I'm not a particularly disciplined person in terms of my work habits.

I love a daily deadline.

The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the good fight.

Momentum is a fragile force. Its worst enemy: procrastination. Its best friend: a deadline (think Election Day). Implication no. 1 (and there is no no. 2): Get to work! NOW!

What I need is a search engine that, no matter what I type in, comes back with GO BACK TO WORK.

If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work.

Doing something does not require discipline. It creates its own discipline - with a little help from caffeine.

Drive thy business or it will drive thee.

When I am idle and shiftless, my affairs become confused; when I work, I get results ... not great results, but enough to encourage me.

It's very easy to fool yourself that you're working, you know, when you're really not working very hard. I mean, I'm very lazy. So for me, I would always have an excuse, you know, to go - quit early, go to a museum, you know. So I do everything I can to make myself remember this is a job. I keep a schedule.

If you give yourself to your task at once, you won't have to do it twice.

I just think there are enough hours in the day. If you just focus and dedicate yourself and approach each task as it presents itself, you can accomplish a lot.

People think, 'Oh, I'm loving myself by sitting on this sofa for four hours.' Love yourself enough to get up!

Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.

Having deadlines helps because people are constantly breathing down my neck, and tapping their toes waiting for pages. So I just have to work nine to five. If I didn't have deadlines then I might be more of a golden hour kind of guy, writing from eight to noon and calling it a day, but that's just not the way I work right now.

I can handle a lot of work. I've always been able to. I'm a very focused individual. I come to my studio at about 7:30 in the morning and exit almost 5:00 P.M. In that time, those eight or nine hours, it's kind of laser focus on whatever I'm working on. There aren't really any distractions or anything.

I have to be motivated, and I'm sure time will avail itself.