Article image

Quotes About How To Be Productive in a Healthy Way

Hard work undoubtedly has its merits: It cultivates discipline, achievement, and a sense of personal pride. But without a mindful, balanced approach, we can easily get swept up in hustle culture, which can lead to burnout, injury, or a decline in health.

While it’s great to have goals, constantly striving for a singular idea of success can be to our detriment. Not only do we run the risk of stretching ourselves too thin, but the goalposts often find a way to keep shifting, trapping us on a treadmill of never-ending work.

Finding ways to be more productive — which doesn’t necessarily mean doing more, but rather working smarter, more efficiently, and more purposefully — certainly helps, and so does finding balance. Resting is not a sign of weakness; it’s a prudent investment in our physical and emotional well-being.

These quotes honor the value to be found in hard work while also reminding us of the need for a healthy work-life balance.

You can't do a good job if your job is all you do.
Katie Thurmes

Share Quote

This is what ultimately matters: where you end up, not the speed at which you get there, or the number of people you impress with your jittery busyness along the way.
Cal Newport

Share Quote

The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
Stephen Covey

Share Quote

Being selective — doing less — is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.
Timothy Ferriss

Share Quote

Don't get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.
Dolly Parton

Share Quote

Hard work spotlights the character of people: Some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.
Sam Ewing

Share Quote

The time to relax is when you don't have time for it; when you get the time, you are generally too exhausted to enjoy it. The way to relax … is to spread it out during the week.
Sydney J. Harris

Share Quote

Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning.
Malcolm Gladwell

Share Quote

Always take some of the play, fun, freedom and wonder of the weekend into your week and your work.
Rasheed Ogunlaru

Share Quote

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

Share Quote

Position yourself to succeed by doing the other things in your life that rejuvenate you.
Jeff VanderMeer

Share Quote

Don’t worry about breaks every 20 minutes ruining your focus on a task … 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

Share Quote

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
Peter Drucker

Share Quote

This lesson, that doing less can enable better results, defies our contemporary bias toward activity.
Cal Newport

Share Quote

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

Share Quote

Featured image credit: Neilson Barnard/ Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images

Author image
About the Author
Nicole Villeneuve
Nicole is a writer, thrift store lover, and group-chat meme spammer based in Ontario, Canada.
Play more header background
Play more icon
Daily Question
Fill in the blank: "___ is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect." - Steve Jobs

More Inspiration

happiness theme icon

Love comes… when you dare to reveal yourself fully. When you dare to be vulnerable.

separator icon
Joyce Brothers
motivation theme icon

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

separator icon
Eleanor Roosevelt
hope theme icon

You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people, if you don't serve the people.

separator icon
Cornel West
love theme icon

We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.

separator icon
Alan Watts
wisdom theme icon

If you want to look good in front of thousands, you have to outwork thousands in front of nobody.

separator icon
Damian Lillard
happiness theme icon

Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult.

separator icon
George Eliot
motivation theme icon

Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.

separator icon
Edith Wharton
hope theme icon

All experience is great providing you live through it.

separator icon
Alice Neel
love theme icon

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.

separator icon
Helen Keller
wisdom theme icon

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

separator icon
Seneca
happiness theme icon

It’s the artists who do the dreaming for society.

separator icon
Méret Oppenheim