Michelle Obama Quotes

Far too many people hide behind their busy lifestyles

What one thing could you do in your personal and professional life that, if you did on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your life? Quadrant II activities have that kind of impact. Our effectiveness takes quantum leaps when we do them.

There are a whole lot of people who are so freakin' busy—they've so cluttered up their lives—they're at their wits' end. And if they'd only just stop for a minute, they could hear the God of the universe whisper to them, “I love you.

Time is valuable; people are busy.

You have to learn to balance work, family, a personal life; it is a part of life.

One has to divide attention between having kids and a full workload.

We live very busy lives. But everyone has a spare minute.

When I'm working out and eating healthily, it's easier to manage the stresses and schedule demands that are a reality in media.

There will always be another email to get through; something to clean up, file, and organize; more errands to do. Which is why balance is so important. Life is a marathon, not a sprint.

Have you ever noticed that Jesus is never recorded as taking a holiday? He retired for the purposes of his mission, not from it. He was never destroyed by his work; he was always on top of it. He moved among people as the master of every situation. He was busier than anyone; the multitudes were always at him, yet he had time, for everything and everyone. He was never hurried, or harassed, or too busy. He had complete supremacy over time; he never let it dictate to him. He talked of my time; my hour. He knew exactly when the moment had come for doing something and when it had not.

Worry is a funky luxury when a lot has to be done.

We're a nation of exhausted and over-stressed adults raising over-scheduled children.

If people would reflect that one can only do one thing at a time and therefore there is never more than one thing to do at a time, there would be less fatigue in the world.

It seems like I don't have a lot of time for all the things I need to do. I'm spreading myself fairly thin. I have responsibilities to my children. I have a big staff that works for me. And when you have a staff, and I'm sure you know this, you're always concerned with everybody's life all the time.

Too many people, too many demands, too much to do; competent, busy, hurrying people - It just isn't living at all.

You must master your time rather than becoming a slave to the constant flow of events and demands on your time. And you must organize your life to achieve balance, harmony, and inner peace.

Life seems to be busy for most people and if you know you are doing the best you can then there really is nothing more you can do then that.

I've read something that Bill Gates said about six months ago. He said, ‘I worked really, really hard in my 20s.’ And I know what he means, because I worked really, really hard in my 20s too. Literally, you know, 7 days a week, a lot of hours every day. And it actually is a wonderful thing to do, because you can get a lot done. But you can't do it forever, and you don't want to do it forever, and you have to come up with ways of figuring out what the most important things are and working with other people even more.

The secret of the truly successful ... is that they learned early in life how not to be busy.

We Americans are living a lifestyle of exhaustion. We don't have time for ourselves, much less for each other and our children.

There's sometimes when I feel really balanced, and there's other times when I feel like I'm trying to keep juggling too many balls in the air, and I feel like I'm on the edge of dropping all of them and having them all land on my head, you know? Scheduling is a big part of it, and the other is just remaining flexible and keeping a sense of humor about things.

It's the luxury of time that lets me in some ways now spoil myself. I get my workout in every day. I get a good, long sleep every day. I won't say they're guilty pleasures. When I first left Microsoft, I would say I spent the better part of a year saying, "OK, how do I get as busy and crazy and manic as I was at Microsoft?" Since then I said, "No, I'll make a bigger contribution in this phase of my life by being able to pick and choose, not being so manic, having time to step back, a little more time for what I'll call discernment rather than just activity."

I think I've only spent about ten percent of my energies on writing. The other ninety percent went to keeping my head above water.

I don't live my life on the road. I'm getting on a bit and there's a lot of other things in my life. Our lovely children and their lives. It's more of a part-time business these days.

I am driven by what you are able to accomplish and how you are able to help some people. I go about it each and every day, sometimes I think I say yes too much and I am too busy in my life.