Sam Altman on Priorities Quotes

"If you have more than three priorities, you have no priorities."

"Most people waste most of their time on things that don't matter. Once you have figured out what to do, be relentless about getting your small handful of priorities done quickly."

"Don't get caught up in 'fake work.' Fake work is anything that makes you feel productive but doesn't actually contribute to your primary goal."

"The best way to get things done is to have fewer things to do. Ruthless prioritization is the only way to make it through a huge workload."

"I try to spend as much time as possible on the things that only I can do, and delegate or ignore the rest."

"A big secret of the most successful people is that they are very good at ignoring things that aren't their top priority."

"The best way to stay focused is to be deeply passionate about your priority. Passion makes the 'no' easier."

"Compounding is the most powerful force in the universe. You should prioritize things that compound over time."

"It’s better to do one thing exceptionally well than ten things mediocrely. That requires hard choices about priorities."

"Always prioritize the bottleneck. If you fix anything else, you aren't actually making progress."

"You have to be ruthless with your time. It’s the only resource you can’t get more of."

"Extreme focus is required for extreme success. You can't do everything, and if you try, you'll end up doing nothing well."

"The hard part is deciding what to work on. Once you've decided, the execution is just a matter of discipline."

"You have to prioritize building a great team. Without the right people, your other priorities won't matter."

"Don't prioritize status or optics. Prioritize substance and results."

"Saying no is a superpower. It allows you to protect your focus for the things that will actually change the world."

"If you are working on a startup, your priority should be making a product that people love. Everything else is secondary."

"A common mistake is prioritizing the urgent over the important. You have to fight to keep the important on your calendar."

"If you don't get your priorities right, you will spend your life working very hard on things that don't move the needle."

"You should always know what your number one priority is. If you don't know it, you haven't thought enough."

"One of the most important things I've learned is to ignore the noise and focus on the signals that actually lead to growth."

"The best founders are the ones who can look at a list of 100 urgent things and pick the one that is actually important."

"Prioritize speed. In a startup, speed is one of your few advantages over larger competitors."

"Focus is a force multiplier on work. Almost everyone would be better served by spending more time thinking about what to focus on."

"Prioritize work that has high optionality or high compounding potential. Avoid dead ends."

"The goal is to find the highest-leverage thing you can do and then do it with everything you've got."

"You should be thinking about what you want to achieve in ten years, and then prioritize your daily tasks to align with that vision."

"You have to be willing to say no to a lot of things to be able to say yes to the one or two things that truly matter."

"The most successful people I know are obsessed with their priorities. They don't just have them; they live by them."

"Prioritize the long term. Most people are too focused on the next week; the real gains come from the next decade."

"The difference between a good year and a great year is often just how well you picked your top three priorities in January."

"The secret to high output is to work on a very small number of things and to be extremely intense about them."

"I think the most important thing for a founder is to be able to prioritize. There are a thousand things you could be doing, but only one or two really matter."