Paul Graham

"Protecting time to work without distraction sharpens focus."

"Curiosity pulls focus forward when motivation fades."

"Focus means refining the same thing again and again."

"Great work happens by staying with a problem longer than most people."

"Consistency, not drama, produces breakthroughs."

"Great work requires spending unreasonable amounts of focused time."

"Great work happens by focusing consistently on something you’re genuinely interested in. There may be long stretches when you feel like you’re just inching along, but if you keep going, you’ll occasionally stop to take stock and be surprised by how far you’ve come. The consistency, not the drama, is what produces the breakthrough."

"Great work usually entails spending what would seem to most people an unreasonable amount of time on a problem. You can’t think of this time as a cost, or it will always seem too high. You have to find the work so engaging in the moment that years of focused effort feel less like sacrifice and more like curiosity pulling you forward."

"The work compounds when you show up daily."

"Consistency transforms effort into leverage."

"The work compounds when consistency stays."