'I need milk' and 'I need to decide whether to buy this company' both tie up space in psychic RAM. The solution is simple. Write it down. Look at it. Do it or say to yourself 'not now'.

Isn't it interesting that people feel best about themselves right before they go on vacation? They've cleared up all of their to-do piles, closed up transactions, renewed old promises with themselves. My most basic suggestion is that people should do that more than just once a year.

Sometimes the biggest gain in productive energy will come from cleaning the cobwebs, dealing with old business, and clearing the desks—cutting loose debris that's impeding forward motion.

You can do anything, not everything

Anything that does not belong where it is, is an "open loop" pulling on your attention.

Things rarely get stuck because of lack of time. They get stuck because the doing of them has not been defined.

Most people move actually into high performance in a crisis because that creates the kind of focus that creates high performance.