60 Productivity Quotes to Level up Your Efficiency

If you need a little push to get you through the day, check out this list of productivity quotes we’ve gathered for you!

Every day, we put in the effort at work, school, and personal lives. We act, decide, think, brainstorm, and more. However, do all of these actions equate to something productive?

To be successful, we must not blindly work. Instead, we must ensure that our every action yields something concrete in return. This is the only way to become productive in life and the only way to reach success.

So, let’s not waste our time working on things that do not bring in any results. Let’s instead ensure that we’re productive in everything we do.

To help you out, read through this list we’ve prepared and gain better knowledge on how to move effectively and efficiently!

Check out the complete list below. 

And make sure to read these action quotes and time management quotes.

Best Productivity Quotes 

1. “Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.” – Franz Kafka

2. “Don’t confuse activity with productivity. Many people are simply busy being busy.” – Robin Sharma

3. “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” – Paul J. Meyer

4. “Productivity is to create asymmetrical situations where your one good input creates many good outputs.” – Richie Norton 

5. “Both good and bad days should end with productivity. Your mood affairs should never influence your work.” – Greg Evans

6. “For real productivity, however, we need to prioritize people. You’re a human being, not a human doing.” – Michael Hyatt

7. “Productivity is not about getting everything done; rather, it is about getting things done effectively.” – Brianna Gray 

8. “Productivity isn’t about doing more things—it’s about doing the right things.” – Chris Bailey

9. “The more you eliminate the inefficient use of information, the better it is for productivity.” – Mitch Kapor

10. “Productivity should emerge from a natural flow, not from force. If you are working in alignment with your purpose and skill sets, you will have a certain workflow that naturally results in productivity. And that productivity can be further improved with intentionality. In this way, your investment of time and energy achieves the maximum ROI.” – Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

Productivity Quotes to Give You a Glimpse of What It Entails

11. “Productivity is the deliberate, strategic investment of your time, talent, intelligence, energy, resources, and opportunities in a manner calculated to move you measurably closer to meaningful goals.” – Dan S. Kennedy

12. “Knowledge is the source of wealth. Applied to tasks we already know, it becomes productivity. Applied to tasks that are new, it becomes innovation.” – Peter Drucker

13. “All our productivity, leverage, and insight comes from being part of a community, not apart from it. The goal, I think, is to figure out how to become more dependent, not less.” – Seth Godin

14. “Productivity doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be easily boosted through a manageable combination of the right tools, resources, and habits to make the most of your time.” – Caroline Ghosn

15. “Want to be more productive? Uncover the subtle nuances that steal your productivity and fix those.” – Allison Graham

16. “Small tweaks yield the biggest results. You don’t have to overhaul your whole productivity system to minimize overwhelm.” – Allison Graham

17. “Productively fail instead of productively procrastinate.” – Drasen

18. “The key to productivity is to rotate your avoidance techniques.” – Shannon Wheeler

Also read: Effectiveness Quotes

Bite-Sized Productivity Quotes to Keep In Mind

19. “Improved productivity means less human sweat, not more.” – Henry Ford

20. “Paying good wages is not in opposition to good productivity.” – James Sinegal

21. “Making the jump between knowing and doing is what productivity is all about.” – Chris Bailey

22. “Passion is a fuel to run your engine in order to give more productivity.” – Myra Yadav

23. “Excuses and productivity repel each other.” – Janna Cachola

24. “Focus on being productive instead of busy.” – Tim Ferriss

25. “Busy people have goals and productive people have priorities.” – Sharat Sharma

26. “To be fruitful and productive is to invest in time.” – Sunday Adelaja

27. “The happier you are, the more productive you will become.” – Chris Bailey

28. “Your race against life must yield effort for you to be productive.” – Sunday Adelaja

29. “Productivity = Discipline + Planning + Quality.” – Haresh Sippy

Productivity Quotes for Work

30. “The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.” – Peter Drucker

31. “Productivity depends on many factors, including our workforce’s knowledge and skills and the quantity and quality of the capital, technology, and infrastructure that they have to work with.” – Janet Yellen

32. “You don’t get paid for the hour; you get paid for the value you bring to the hour.” – Jim Rohn

33. “A good management style will make the productivity of your employees go up, which means your revenues and profits go up as well.” – Pooja Agnihotri

34. “Even though worker capacity and motivation are destroyed when leaders choose power over productivity, it appears that bosses would rather be in control than have the organization work well.” – Margaret J. Wheatley

35. “The productivity of a workgroup seems to depend on how the group members see their own goals in relation to the goals of the organization.” – Ken Blanchard

36. “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.” – David Allen

37. “Understanding your employee’s perspective can go a long way towards increasing productivity and happiness.” – Kathryn Minshew

38. “I have a lot of nervous energy. Work is my best way of channeling that into something productive unless I want to wind up assaulting the postman or gardener.” – Ben Stiller

39. “Creativity isn’t about wild talent as much as it’s about productivity. To find new ideas that work, you need to try a lot that don’t. It’s a pure numbers game.” – Robert Sutton

40. “What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50%.” – Susan Cain

Also read: Quotes for Work

Productivity Quotes That’ll Guide Your Actions

41. “On my desk, I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you’ll never go back because it has a direct impact on productivity.” – Bill Gates

42. “One of the great challenges of our age, in which the tools of our productivity are also the tools of our leisure, is to figure out how to make more useful those moments of procrastination when we’re idling in front of our computer screens.” – Joshua Foer

43. “No matter how many personal productivity techniques you master, there will always be more to do than you can ever accomplish in the time you have available to you, no matter how much it is.” – Brian Tracy

44. “Stressing output is the key to improving productivity while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.” – Paul Gauguin

45. “The really happy people are those who have broken the chains of procrastination, those who find satisfaction in doing the job at hand. They’re full of eagerness, zest, and productivity. You can be, too.” – Norman Vincent Peale

Productivity Quotes You Need to Read Today

46. “Productivity growth, however it occurs, has a disruptive side to it. In the short term, most things that contribute to productivity growth are very painful.” – Janet Yellen

47. “Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” – Warren Buffett

48. “Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.” – Gretchen Rubin

49. “Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by the degree of presence.” – Alan Watts

50. “Sameness leaves us in peace, but it is the contradiction that makes us productive.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

More Quotes on Productivity

51. “When you waste a moment, you have killed it in a sense, squandering an irreplaceable opportunity. But when you use the moment properly, filling it with purpose and productivity, it lives on forever.” – Menachem Mendel Schneerson

52. “To rush is to equate speed with productivity. Speed might ensure that something gets done, but it does not guarantee that it’s productive.” – Craig D. Lounsbrough

53. “An alarum for waking life, the telephone. It’s the trustiest tool to yank someone away from actual productivity.” – A.D. Aliwat

54. “There’s a tendency to mistake preparation for productivity. You can prepare all you want, but if you never roll the dice, you’ll never be successful.” – Shia LaBeouf

55. “Don’t worry about breaks every 20 minutes ruining your focus on a task. Contrary to what I might have guessed, taking regular breaks from mental tasks actually improves your creativity and productivity. Skipping breaks, on the other hand, leads to stress and fatigue.” – Tom Rath

56. “The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.” – Tom Peters

57. “Find your time when you’re the most productive and creative and build your routine around it.” – Pooja Agnihotri

58. “I would suggest that productivity is not based on how much I get done. Rather, it’s based on how much I improve someone’s life as a by-product of getting something done.” – Craig D. Lounsbrough

59. “Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live—that productive work is the process by which man’s consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one’s purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one’s values—that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind.” – Anonymous

60. “The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.” – Thomas Sowell

How Important Is Productivity When Reaching for Success?

Being productive in our daily lives is challenging. After all, so many distractions surround us day in and day out. But, if we let ourselves get lost in these distractions, how can we be sure that we’ll reach our dreams and aspirations?

So, we must dedicate ourselves to constantly improving and showing concrete results. Our goals aren’t something we can acquire in the blink of an eye, but they are all feasible through hard work and perseverance.

Productivity is what will open the doors for new opportunities. With it, we’ll be able to accomplish more in a shorter period of time. Alongside productivity also lies learning how to separate the essentials from the nonessentials; this, along with other values, will help you gain clarity and focus in terms of the necessary steps you need to take to succeed.

You can accomplish so many things if you’re productive. So, let this list of quotes guide all your actions so they may be purposeful and meaningful!

Read Next:

Karen Danao

Hi, I’m Karen, a content curator and writer for Quote Ambition; I’m also a marketing and advertising professional. Beyond the keyboard and the screen, I’m someone who’s out to enjoy every bit that life has to offer!

Poetry, philosophy, history, and movies are all topics I love writing about! However, my true passion is in traveling, photography, and finding common ground to which everyone from different cultures can relate.

With the many places I’ve been to, I found that love, inspiration, and happiness are some things that bring people together. No matter how different we are on the outside, I’m a true believer that our emotions don’t lie; if you dig deep into our psyche, we’re all the same inside.

This belief was further amplified when I joined Quote Ambition. Through the quotes I’ve read, collected, organized, and written about, I found that humans are resilient, creative, and compassionate.

We take from each others’ hearts and courage, and it’s through our individual experiences that we learn how to rise above our challenges and pain. In so many ways, Quote Ambition is a platform that allows people from all over the world to gain the inspiration they need anytime, anywhere!

You can find me on MuckRack and LinkedIn.