From our newsletter Outside the Lines - The Business Edition

Don’t take my word for it

Smart folks thinking out loud about doing just enough to get the job done.

“It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?”
-Ronald Reagan, American President

“A man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied; he must know how to disengage what is essential from the detail in which it is enwrapped, for everything cannot be equally considered; in a word, he must be able to simplify his duties, his business and his life.”
-Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss writer

“Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify, simplify!”
-Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher

“Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything.”
-Floyd Dell, American writer

“Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.”
Walter P. Chrysler, American automaker

“Efficiency is intelligent laziness.”
David Dunham, American actor

“Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.”
-Andy Rooney, American writer