60 Motivational Quotes to Boost Your Work Productivity
What drives you to wake up every day and go to work? For many, reading inspirational productivity quotes is all it takes to get them motivated. These quotes can be powerful, especially when you’re struggling to focus at work or on a project.
Ultimately, we all want to be successful and fulfill our goals. With commitment, passion, and hard work, we can get there. However, it’s important to recognize that you can’t maintain the same energy level all day, every day of the week. Work pressure can take a toll on your body and mind, draining your zeal and motivation. While productivity tools can help track your productivity, they are of little use if your motivation starts to wane.
As Zig Ziglar, the American author and motivational speaker, once said, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last long. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
Here are 60 of the most powerful motivational quotes for work success that you can always come back to whenever you feel your energy levels are at their lowest:
- “Always deliver more than expected.” – Larry Page, Google co-founder
- “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities.” – Stephen Covey
- “Ordinary people think merely of spending time, great people think of using it.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
- “The best way out is always through.” – Robert Frost
- “Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.” – Franz Kafka
- “You can’t get much done in life if you only work on days when you feel good.” – Jerry West
- “Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.” – Peter Drucker
- “Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year, and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!” – Tony Robbins
- “Efficiency is doing better what is already being done.” – Peter Drucker
- “Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” – Napoleon Hill
- “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
- “Effective performance is preceded by painstaking preparation.” – Brian Tracy
- “You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.” – Zig Ziglar
- “Sometimes, things may not go your way, but the effort should be there every single night.” – Michael Jordan
- “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” – Norman Vincent Peale
- “Every day that I procrastinate, every day that I sit stagnant in fear, every day that I fail to better myself, someone else out there with the same goals and dreams as me is doing the exact opposite.” – Noel DeJesus
- “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” – Stephen King
- “It’s not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less.” – Nathan W. Morris
- “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” – Saint Francis of Assisi
- “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” – Bruce Lee
- “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
- “Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them, and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can’t miss.” – Lee Iacocca
- “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
- “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” – Steve Jobs
- “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” – Paul J. Meyer
- “It’s not knowing what to do; it’s doing what you know.” – Tony Robbins
- “If there are nine rabbits on the ground, if you want to catch one, just focus on one.” – Jack Ma
- “There is no royal, flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it. For if I have accomplished anything in life, it is because I have been willing to work hard.” – C.J. Walker
- “Focus on being productive instead of busy.” – Tim Ferriss
- “There is no substitute for hard work.” – Thomas Edison
- “I always had the uncomfortable feeling that if I wasn’t sitting in front of a computer typing, I was wasting my time – but I pushed myself to take a wider view of what was ‘productive.’ Time spent with my family and friends was never wasted.” – Gretchen Rubin
- “Those who seize the day become seriously rich.” – Richard Koch
- “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
- “Luck is not chance, it’s toil; Fortune’s expensive smile is earned.” – Emily Dickinson
- “If you don’t have daily objectives, you qualify as a dreamer.” – Zig Ziglar
- “While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.” – Henry C. Link
- “Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.” – Peter Drucker
- “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Japanese proverb
- “It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.” – Benjamin Franklin
- “There’s a way to do it better – find it.” – Thomas A. Edison
- “It’s not whether you get knocked down. It’s whether you get up again.” – Vince Lombardi
- “Our greatest glory is never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “If you commit to giving more time than you have to spend, you will constantly be running from debt collectors.” – Elizabeth Grace Saunders
- “The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.” – Oprah Winfrey
- “If you end your day feeling like you got nothing done, it’s because you weren’t working; you were busy, not productive.” – Richie Norton
- “Forget all the reasons why it won’t work and believe the one reason why it will.” – Ziad K. Abdelnour
- “Today is always the most productive day of your week.” – Mark Hunter
- “Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see further.” – Thomas Carlyle
- “Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.” – Coco Chanel
- “Simplicity boils down to two steps: identify the essential, eliminate the rest.” – Leo Babauta
- “You can do anything, but not everything.” – David Allen
- “Why do anything unless it is going to be great.” – Peter Block
- “Time management is not a peripheral activity or skill. It is the core skill upon which everything else in life depends.” – Brian Tracy
- “Nothing is particularly hard when you divide it into small jobs.” – Henry Ford
- “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The Sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” – Alexander Graham Bell
- “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali
- “Do the hard jobs first. Easy jobs will take care of themselves.” – Dale Carnegie
- “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” – Henry Ford
- “If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest first.” – Brian Tracy
- “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
This last motivational quote by Tom Rath highlights the importance of using a productivity monitoring tool like Traqq to ensure regular breaks. Set a timer to alert you after every 45 minutes or hour, allowing you to take a 15 or 20-minute break to relax and rejuvenate. While it may feel like a waste of time, your mind and body need it to maintain peak productivity. Overworking affects your mental and physical well-being, directly impacting your ability to stay productive at work.
