Steve McConnell Quotes

The computer cuts my production time in half. I love it.

I loved my computer; it's a tool. A tool increases your mechanical advantages. It allows you to use your strengths and talents to greater advantage, and that's what tools do, and that's what my computer does for me. It's not my toy, it's my tool.

Family comes first so I only have this specific window of time available to me and because of that I actually get more done.

Everybody that I've ever seen that enjoyed their job was very good at it.

If somebody asked for the first draft of something I'd written, it'd probably be pretty close to whatever got published. I get enjoyment out of writing, but I get absolutely no enjoyment out of rewriting, so I don't do much of it. The more you work on something, certainly, the better it gets. But there's also a pretty clear law of diminishing returns.

I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand.

I don't really manage my time. I really just wait until I'm inspired to do something. And when I'm inspired to do something, it just happens.

Eat that frog! If you have to eat 3 frogs, eat the biggest and uggliest one first.

Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can assume great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became “geniuses” (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole.

Energy apparently increases with the amount of work to be done. When nothing of burning urgency is waiting, it decreases much sooner. Heaven seems to understand such economy.

There are highly gifted spirits who are always infertile simply because, owing to a weakness in temperament, they are too impatient to wait out their pregnancy to term.

Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first & we lose both first and second things.

Do less of what you're terrible at and more of what you're good at. I don't know if that sounds too simple, but it's been working for me.

Indecision is a major time waster; 80% of decisions should be made the first time they come up

When I first started writing, I had a very difficult time switching between projects, but now it's not only second-nature, it's indispensable: If I stall on one project, I can switch to another and stay productive.

If you have time don't wait for time.

...We need to strive to keep things in proper balance. Good balance comes in doing things in a timely way and in not procrastinating our preparation or waiting to fulfill our responsibilities until the last minute.

Work mixed with management becomes not only easier but more profitable. The time is past when anyone can boast about 'hard work' without having a corresponding result to show for it.

Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards.

I think we are a better and a more efficient society when people actually get to do the things that they really are passionate about, and really are amazing at, because it's going to mean better stuff for us, too.

Ordinary people merely think how they shall 'spend' their time; a man of talent tries to 'use' it.

Very few people know how to work. Inspiration, everybody has inspiration. That's just hot air.

I think the great trick of doing my sort of thing is to learn to use your downtime, and of course in the media and especially in television, there's a heck of a lot of time of waiting around. And I think the trick is to use that.

Every moment waited is a moment wasted.

Method will teach you to win time.