"Don't be a time manager, be a priority manager. Cut your major goals into bite-sized pieces. Each small priority or requirement on the way to ultimate goal become a mini goal in itself"
About this Quote
Waitley’s hook flips a familiar self-help obsession on its head: the problem isn’t that you “don’t have enough time,” it’s that you’re treating time like the scarce resource instead of attention and values. “Time manager” is framed as a bureaucrat’s job, all grids and guilt. “Priority manager” is the identity upgrade: a person who chooses. The line works because it quietly indicts the modern fantasy that productivity is neutral. It isn’t. Every calendar is a moral document.
The second move - “bite-sized pieces” - borrows the language of dieting and parenting for adult ambition. It’s deliberately unglamorous. Big goals are romantic; small pieces are operational. Waitley’s subtext is that motivation is unreliable, but momentum is engineerable. By slicing the “major goals” into steps, you reduce the psychological toll of starting, the friction that makes people procrastinate while still claiming they’re “busy.”
Then comes the real trick: rebranding each requirement as a “mini goal.” That’s not just planning; it’s emotional accounting. Mini goals create frequent closure, regular hits of progress that keep people from quitting during the long, boring middle. In context, this is classic late-20th-century American performance wisdom: individual agency, incrementalism, and a quiet faith that systems can outmuscle mood. It’s optimistic, yes, but also pragmatic to the point of austerity: stop worshipping the clock; decide what matters, then design your days to prove it.
The second move - “bite-sized pieces” - borrows the language of dieting and parenting for adult ambition. It’s deliberately unglamorous. Big goals are romantic; small pieces are operational. Waitley’s subtext is that motivation is unreliable, but momentum is engineerable. By slicing the “major goals” into steps, you reduce the psychological toll of starting, the friction that makes people procrastinate while still claiming they’re “busy.”
Then comes the real trick: rebranding each requirement as a “mini goal.” That’s not just planning; it’s emotional accounting. Mini goals create frequent closure, regular hits of progress that keep people from quitting during the long, boring middle. In context, this is classic late-20th-century American performance wisdom: individual agency, incrementalism, and a quiet faith that systems can outmuscle mood. It’s optimistic, yes, but also pragmatic to the point of austerity: stop worshipping the clock; decide what matters, then design your days to prove it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Goal Setting |
|---|
More Quotes by Denis
Add to List
