Inspirational Time Quotes

I find it very inspiring to know what other authors and speakers say about time. Here are some of my favorite inspirational time quotes.

These inspirational time quotes are my favorite quotes that I’ve heard from many well-known or not so well-known people. These are the time quotes that really resonate with me. I want to explain why I connect with them and what they might mean for you.

If you seek tranquility do less.  – Marcus Aurelis

This is a really interesting quote for me because we are often so busy being humans-doing that we forget to be humans-being. So if you really want to be calm and tranquil find a way to do less. Find a way to minimize all the activities that you do.

Ordinary people think merely of spending time great people think of using it. – Anonymous

We don’t know who first said this anonymous quote but I think it’s very powerful. We think of spending time and killing time. I’d really don’t like the phrase “killing time” and instead we should think of how are we using that time, how are we investing that time.

When you value your time, you value yourself. – Garland Coulson “Captain Time”

This is a phrase I say quite often to my clients. Many of my clients don’t value their own time, therefore, they’re devaluing themselves. It’s really important that we value our own time. We often put ourselves last. Everybody else’s needs soak up all of our time, so we have no time left for us.

Don’t spend time beating on a wall hoping to transform it into a door. – Coco Chanel

This is a very powerful observation because we are often beating our head on a wall and we’re trying to somehow turn it into a door instead of going to look for the real door, the real opportunities that are there in front of us.

 We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking we used when we created them. – Albert Einstein

Isn’t that a great point? This is why sometimes it’s important to seek outside perspectives. Ask somebody else within your organization or outside of your organization or consultants or experts. Because we often can’t see the solution because we’re at the same level of thinking that we used when we created these problems. It’s very important to be able to somehow rise above our old thinking and think in new ways.

They always say time changes things but you actually have to change them yourself. – Andy Warhol

This is again very powerful. It’s taking charge of your time yourself. You’re the one who has to make the change, you can’t just wait and hope that things will get better over time.

They say I’m old-fashioned and live in the past but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast. – Dr. Suess

As you can probably tell from the rhyming and the rhythm of this quote, this was said by Dr. Seuss and it’s a really good point. We have progress going on, new technology, things start coming out faster and faster. We now have smartphones and sometimes we let them take over our time. the progress is progressing too fast and we need to take control of that and use them as tools instead of letting them manage our time.

She is free in her wildness she is a wanderess, a drop of free water. She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules or customs. Time for her isn’t something to fight against. Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water. – Roman Payne

This is a very powerful concept. Time isn’t something to fight against. You need to flow with it. Time is something to embrace, to work within to be free. And not caring so much for the rules and customs-  I love this and I love the imagery and the way that this is put together.

There is more to life than simply increasing its speed. – Mahatma Gandhi

We are so focused on faster, higher, better and more tech and we’ve sped up our life’s so much that we really have lost that connection to what’s really important.

Now I want to quote from one of my favorite science fiction authors:

I am NOT defeated I am merely detained on the way to victory – Elizabeth Moon, Rules of Engagement

I love the phrasing on this and I love the idea behind it. I may have failed today but that doesn’t mean I’m defeated I am merely detained on my way to victory. Because I’m on my way to victory and I’m going to get there.

It is long come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things. – Leonardo da Vinci

This is again illustrating the point that we need to get out and happen to things. We can’t wait for accomplishment to find us – for success to find us, or the lottery to happen. We have to go out and create our own success.

Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it. – Anonymous

This is something a lot of people do. You’ve put so much time into a bad relationship or so much time into a bad career you just can’t see letting go of it because you put 10 years into this. If you let go of this now you’ll have been a failure – you’ll have lost a decade. We are so invested in that time spent, that sunken cost, that we can’t let go.  instead of freeing ourselves from these past choices that are weighing us down like an anchor and choosing to learn from those mistakes and make better choices in the future, we continue to let them pull us down.

Progress isn’t made by early risers, it’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. – Robert a Heinlein

Heinlein wrote a short story about a man who was very too lazy to fail who would continually find better ways to do things. I’m always looking for how do I automate this, how do I delegate to somebody else, how do I get my team to work on it instead of doing it myself? So I’m always looking for a more efficient way. In a way you need almost that little bit of laziness to make you say that this is too much detail work it’s not the best use of my brilliance, of my abilities, so I’m going to pass this on to somebody else.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein

Isn’t that powerful? We’re often so scared of making that mistake we’re unwilling to try anything new so we keep doing the same old things.

Do not wait the time will never be just right. Start where you stand and work with whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along. – George Herber

My clients are always looking for the best, most amazing tool that’s going to somehow solve everything for them. I say don’t wait until you find the perfect tool. Pick a tool to start that appeals to you now. Work with it for six months, and that will tell you where your tool is failing and what other features you need. Then you can switch to another tool. So you don’t have to get the perfect tool figured out in the beginning, just use the tools you have to make the work go ahead and the new tools will come along later.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein

We do this so often. Something didn’t work so we try it again and again. We think it’s persistence but it’s actually stubbornness. If we’ve proven it’s not going to work then doing it that the same thing again is not going to help. We need to get up to the new levels of thinking as Albert Einstein said and try new things.

Failure to plan on your part does constitute an emergency on my part.  – Anonymous

I have this happen with clients where they’ll need something last-minute. For example, we’ve been talking for months about me doing a website for them suddenly they need a website up by Friday because of some big media push.  Sorry, I can’t do a good job in that timeframe. It was the failure to plan on their part that created the emergency so they think it’s my emergency but it’s not -it’s their emergency.

This is a phrase I use with my clients. I say:

if you want world-class performance you need to have world-class focus – Garland Coulson “Captain Time”

Think about a person who is in the Olympics or a cellist in a symphony orchestra. They don’t take text messages in the middle of their performance or in the middle of their competition. they’re focused totally on their performance.  In order to get that level of world-class performance, you need that level of focus.

The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher. – Thomas Henry Huxley

This is a really good point about figuring out the next step and then taking it. The step to where you want to get to. This doesn’t mean that you’re always promoted it’s about the next step in your life, your career, and what you want to accomplish for your personal goals.

If you chase two rabbits you’ll not catch either one. – old Russian proverb

I have this problem a lot because I always have lots of great new ideas that I’m sure would be fantastic businesses. But if I chase them then I’m not focusing on my main business which is the one that is funding my life, the one that is most successful and the one that people know me for. So instead, I pass those other ideas off to other people or bring in partners to work on those. I don’t work on chasing that second rabbit because I want to make sure I’m taking care of the successful business that I already have.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There’s no cure for curiosity. – Ellen Parr

Often I’II hear someone say they’re bored. How can you be bored if you’re curious about the world? There’s so much to explore. there’s nature there’s the night sky,  there’s people, relationships, communities, hobbies, and so much to marvel and wonder at. You know there’s just so much out there how could you ever be bored? So you want to make sure you get infected with curiosity because there’s no cure for that and you will never be bored.

However beautiful the strategy you should occasionally look at the results. – Winston Churchill

Many of my clients are so enthralled with the process of something that they’re not looking at what is their actual return the investment – what’s actually working for them.

By working faithfully 8 hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work 12 hours a day. – Robert Frost

Doesn’t that sound exciting? Probably not. This is the case of where we’re always focusing and working harder instead of working smarter. Somehow we are celebrating people becoming workaholics where it’s nothing to be celebrated. Workaholics need a 12-step intervention the same way other -aholics do.

This may be my favorite time quote – it’s the one I use most often.

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. –  Carl Sandburg

Very powerful if you think of time as coin. You only have so much time coin, so much of your life. You only have so many hours, so many days in your life so think of it as spending a valuable coin. You want to invest it, you want to put it where it’s going to do the most for you, where you’re going to get the best payback. And don’t let other people spend your precious time.

There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want. – Bill Watterson, author of Calvin and Hobbes

I am a big Calvin and Hobbes fan! There is a huge amount of wisdom in what Bill Watterson has to teach us in Calvin and Hobbes. We always talk about wanting to do nothing but somehow we never take the time to do it. It’s very important that you set aside time to do nothing but relax and refresh.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. – Henry David Thoreau

I look at how often people buy expensive things and I wonder how many hours of your work was that? Was that really worth it? Was that where you would have wanted to invest the money you earned for that time or to invest your time? So when you’re sitting down to watch TV or thinking of spending money, think of is this what I really want to be doing right now? Is this what I’m exchanging my life for?

People inspire you or they drain you. Pick them wisely. Hans F. Hansen

I don’t spend time around people that drain me. I keep those people out of my life. I choose friends that invigorate me. I choose to spend time with family that I love to spend time with. So I come out feeling energized rather than coming out feeling drained. Don’t let the people who drain you into your life

Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. – Timothy Ferriss

We’re so focused on being busy it’s like we don’t can’t even take time to relax and be fully in the moment. That’s kind of a lazy way of thinking if you think about it. We’re so used to being busy we fill it with the busyness because we’re not creative enough to think of what amazing thing could we do this time. What could I do that was totally different, that would be new?

Another phrase I say to my clients that I made up myself is:

My time. My choice – Garland Coulson “Captain Time

Or in the case of my clients, I say “Your time – your choice.” This is reaffirming to them that they are choosing what to do. So take control of that choice.

And in keeping with that thinking about being in control, I really enjoy this quote.

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot. –  Michael Altshuler

It is important to remember is you are the pilot, you are in control. It is your hands on the controls of your life. You have control of where you spend your time. So don’t let other people take that away from you and make choices of how you’re going to invest your time.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these inspirational quotes as much as I did please hit the like and subscribe button if you enjoyed this and thank you so much for listening.