At least three time per day at scheduled times, he had to ask himself the following question: Am I being productive or just active? Charney captured the essence of this with less-abstract wording: Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important? He eliminated all of the activities he used as crutches and began to focus on demonstrating results instead of showing dedication. Dedication is often just meaningless work in disguise. Be ruthless and cut the fat.

Luxury, to me, is not owning a lot of stuff. Luxury, to me, is feeling unrushed.

I discourage passive skepticism, which is the armchair variety where people sit back and criticize without ever subjecting their theories or themselves to real field testing.

Never check email first thing in the morning. Instead, complete your most important task before 11:00 A.M. to avoid using lunch or reading email as a postponement excuse.

The best way to counter-attack a hater is to make it blatantly obvious that their attack has had no impact on you.

Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all.

Be bold and don't worry about what people think. They don't do it that often anyway.