To get useful new ideas, we must go beyond our immediate circle and make contact with distant parts of the social system.

The key is to work out the few things that are really important, and the few methods that will give us what we really want.

To be strategic is to concentrate on what is important, on those few objectives that can give us a comparative advantage, on what is important to us rather than others, and to plan and execute the resulting plan with determination and steadfastness.

Our current use of time is not rational. There is therefore no point in seeking marginal improvements in how we spend our time. We need to go back to the drawing board and overturn all our assumptions about time.

Use all the willpower at your disposal to make yourself happy. Construct the right stories about yourself - and believe them!

Few people take objectives really seriously. They put average effort into too many things, rather than superior thought and effort into a few important things. People who achieve the most are selective as well as determined.

There is no rush. If we think intelligently about what we can achieve with our time, we can be relaxed, even lazy. In fact, being lazy - having plenty of time to think - may actually be a precondition for achieving a great deal.