Merlin Mann Quotes

#1. Workflow is understanding your job, understanding your tools, and then not thinking about it any more.

Merlin Mann

#2. If you want to make a chili, you're going to break some cows.

Merlin Mann

#3. Thinking can really be the enemy of action, and thinking can be the enemy of reality.

Merlin Mann

#4. If you need to appear on an internet list to know whether you're someone's friend, you may have problems a computer can't solve.

Merlin Mann

#5. Come back, paragraphs. America needs you.

Merlin Mann

#6. Stop. I'm not going to take any more input until I've made something with what I got.

Merlin Mann

#7. Being consistent is WAY less interesting than being yourself. And if you're not interesting? Good luck with your Big Consistency Project.

Merlin Mann

#8. Go a little easier on yourself, and in so doing, be prepared to make and do things that might seem silly at first. Just keep moving: don't ruminate and stare at the wall. Don't just play with your phone: go out and produce something.

Merlin Mann

#9. People either make things or they don't. Inspiration is a poster.

Merlin Mann

#10. People with tiny glasses and costly shoes can always find a couple of hours to explain how you did it all wrong.

Merlin Mann

#11. People will always despise you if you end up doing less stupid BS than they choose to suffer.

Merlin Mann

#12. By my reckoning, I only need about 200 more takeout coffee cups to complete my bitterly ironic mosaic of Al Gore.

Merlin Mann

#13. I think all of the best nonfiction that has ever been made comes from the result of someone who can't stop thinking about a certain topic - a very specific aspect of a certain topic in some cases. And second, they got really good at figuring out what they had to say about it.

Merlin Mann

#14. When you die, no one's going to remember what iPhone you had.

Merlin Mann

#15. Joining a Facebook group about creative productivity is like buying a chair about jogging.

Merlin Mann

#16. Where you allow your attention to go ultimately says more about you as a human being than anything that you put in your mission statement.

Merlin Mann

#17. Feeling creative produces great work in approximately the same way that "feeling like a doctor" makes you a gifted thoracic surgeon.

Merlin Mann

#18. Creative work only seems like a magic trick to people who don't understand that it's ultimately still work.

Merlin Mann

#19. Typing in all lowercase is popular among young people, SMS users, and anyone who feels literacy has become too time-consuming.

Merlin Mann

#20. Like tornadoes and cold sores, good work happens with total disregard to whether I'm 'into it.'

Merlin Mann

#21. You got to be careful to not get too comfortable with incremental improvement. I think sometimes you just got to jump off a ledge.

Merlin Mann

#22. Put plainer, my sense is that western culture would be a damn sight poorer today if John Lennon had been forced to carry a goddamn BlackBerry.

Merlin Mann

#23. Everything takes more time than you thought, everything costs more money than you thought, and almost everything turns out not quite as cool as you expected.

Merlin Mann

#24. Make the time to be scared of more interesting things

Merlin Mann

#25. Thing is: the internet's made of IP addresses, opinions, and assholes. It's what's there. That's the basic equipment.

Merlin Mann

#26. Creative work, summarized: In the time you set aside each day to work your ass off, ignore anything that makes you consider stopping.

Merlin Mann

#27. I'm a project manager, not a magician. Magicians have way cooler hats.

Merlin Mann

#28. Priorities Are Like Arms; If You Think You Have More Than A Couple, You're Either Lying Or Crazy.

Merlin Mann

#29. A priority is observed, not manufactured or assigned. Otherwise, it's necessarily not a priority.

Merlin Mann

#30. Never let the guy with the broom decide how many elephants can be in the parade.

Merlin Mann

#31. It's just that it's mind-boggling to me how many people I encounter every day who are struggling to subsist on a diet of bad advice about fake solutions to nonexistent problems.

Merlin Mann

#32. The mindless junk of your past crowds out opportunities and sets pointless limitations. Move out the junk, and you create room for the rest of your life. Ultimately, it's not just a question of tidying your house; it's a question of liberating your heart.

Merlin Mann

#33. Although your time and attention are finite, the demands on your time and attention are infinite.

Merlin Mann

#34. Personally, it's changed my game - it's how I think now. Can't imagine writing more than a paragraph in anything that doesn't do MMD.

Merlin Mann