Marco Arment Quotes

Possibly I am difficult to live with, but I don't bring my work home much. I'm either busy or not busy. And I don't work from home. I have an office here which has a white wall. No view. I did try working in a room with a view but it was too interesting. Too distracting.

It's true that every day away from work requires two more days to get back into it.

A work-only zone does wonders for your productivity. So, I prefer working at the office now. I spend 8 focused hours there, then I go home to be present with my family.

Don't worry about breaks every 20 minutes ruining your focus on a task. Contrary to what I might have guessed, taking regular breaks from mental tasks actually improves your creativity and productivity. Skipping breaks, on the other hand, leads to stress and fatigue.

I like to be alone so I can write. But focus can hurt you. I don't want to be some stress casualty in early middle age.

I used to start at about 10 at night and work until early morning. My preferred way to work is to start in the early afternoon and work until about 3, go do errands, have dinner, and then write for a few more hours in the evening.

Very, very few people actually have long stretches of uninterrupted time at an office.

The transition of a desk job, having to be in the office at the same time every day, I found super hard.

I can't stop working!

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.'

I'm afraid I'm a complete workaholic perfectionist.

Like many, I am often in back-to-back meetings most of the day.

People who organize their time in a way that allows them to focus are not only going to get more done, but they'll be less tired and less neurochemically depleted after doing it.

I have an office at my house, so when I go home I am always pulling inspiration and putting ideas together.

I have to make sure I study and do my job.

A lot of people don't feel like doing very much. Or one project is really all they can do at one time. I can have five or six things going at the same time. It doesn't bother me or tire me, but sometimes it does rattle me.

He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day will often bring to his task attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease: he will labour on a barren topic till it is too late to change it; or, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce.

I wasn't taking drugs or drinking. I was working and working and working. But I wasn't writing anything.

If I cannot rest and relax, all the work I do is for naught.

If you don't enjoy it, then putting in the long hours is going to take their toll.

I'm not going to hang out with celebrities, I'm not going to parties. I have two songs due for Moana next week, and I'm going to go and spend some time with Maui and Moana in the ocean, in my mind.

There's this emotion we all feel of being overwhelmed at times, feeling that you can't get ahead. For me it's self-imposed because I'm so driven and I'm always going from project to project.

How can we embrace rest and play if we've tied our self-worth to what we produce?

The job of the average manager requires a shift in focus every few minutes. The job of the average software developer requires that the developer not shift focus more often than every few hours.

I don't ever rest. It's a problem and hopefully something I will get a better handle on in the coming years.