- Set priorities and stick to them; two tasks at time (page 12)
- Ask this question: “What must be done?” “Is this the right thing for the enterprise?” (page 12-13)
- 5 habits of the mind (page 24-25)
- Work systematically at managing the little time that can be brought under control
- Ask the question: What results are expected of me? Focus on the efforts to results rather than to work.
- Build on your strengths, don’t build on weakness. Don’t start with the thing you can’t do!
- Concentrate on few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. Know that you have no choice but to do first things first.
- Make effective decisions. Always judge based on dissenting opinions rather than on consensus on the facts. Make decisions fast means make them wrong.
- Before you start managing your time, you first have to know where it actually goes. (page 27)
- To focus on contribution is to focus on effectiveness. (page 70)
- To make strength productive is the unique purpose of organization. It cannot, of course, overcome the weaknesses with which each of us is abundantly endowed. But it can make them irrelevant. (page 71)
- Strong people always have strong weaknesses too. Where there are peaks, there are valleys. And no one is strength in many area. (page 72)
- To try to build on weaknesses frustrates the purpose of organization. One cannot by oneself be only strong; the weaknesses are always with us. (page 75)
- The assertion that “somebody else will not let me do anything” should always be suspected as a cover-up for inertia. Making strengths productive is equally important in respect to one’s own abilities and work habits. (page 96)
- In every area of effectiveness within an organization, one feeds the opportunities and starves the problems. Nowhere is this more important than in respect to people. The effective executive looks upon people including himself as an opportunity. He knows that only strength produces results. (page 98)
