Victor Hugo Quotes

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.

When you find yourself on the Internet when you're supposed to be writing, you've already lost. It's even beyond procrastination when you end up on the Internet.

The Web forces me to be disciplined and not to waste time - but before the Web was invented, there were plenty of opportunities to do that anyway.

I won't deny that I have a far more productive writing life without the Internet, mostly because I rekindle my ability to concentrate on one thing for a period of longer than three minutes. My curiosity is channeled inward rather than Internet-ward.

The biggest challenge is to stay focused. It's to have the discipline when there are so many competing things.

Remove the temptation of idleness and Cupid's bow is useless.

I have to always make sure I don't stay in one place and spend too much time one subject. I have my wife tell me [through an earpiece], "Come back! You're taking too long on that subject." I need to be reeled in.

The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything if you want to succeed in business--or almost anywhere else for that matter.

The mind may wander, but let not the senses wander with it. If the senses wander where the mind takes them, one is done for.

I learnt, for the first time, the joys of substituting hard, disciplined study for the indulgence of day-dreaming.

Concentration is the ability to think about absolutely nothing when it is absolutely necessary.

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

If I leave my computer, I'm probably not going to get back for hours. If I take a few minutes to answer questions and go web surfing, then guilt kicks in and I get back to work.

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

I laugh and joke, but I don't get distracted very easily.

Like some high official, you have to tell your brain: 'Do it. Come on. I have to do it.'

I really love writing, but I am very easily distracted: my two cats fighting, a rainbow, a TV show... I have to use every trick to keep myself at the computer.

My concentration span is truly that of a gnat. Some people have this ladder, and that's all there is - the ladder. I have the ladder, too, but there's a building around it with scaffolding, and lots of windows for me to peek into. Then suddenly I'll remember, 'Oh, there's the ladder. I should be concentrating on that.'

I procrastinate so much and I get distracted by anything.

It's amazing how confused and distracted and misdirected so many people are.

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

I sometimes got distracted easily and allowed my mind to wander when I needed to be focused. It's quite subtle, really, and just being aware of it helps.

If you need five minutes every hour to look at tweets or to just surf the Internet, you need to schedule that into your schedule, allow yourself to do that. Because when people start procrastinating, what they've done is, they've tried to ignore that urge. They try to deny themselves time on Facebook or time surfing the web.

I was a terrible student. Still, I managed to get into college, but my daydreaming threatened to sabotage me. I used behavior modification to break the cycle. I started by setting an arbitrary time limit on studying: for every 15 minutes of study, I'd allow myself an hour of daydreaming. I set the alarm.

No more than a surgeon can operate while tweeting can you reach your potential with one ear in, one ear out. You actually have to reacquaint yourself with concentration. We all do.