Merlin Mann Quotes & Sayings

Trying to talk somebody out of the stuff that they enjoy in life is like trying to talk them out of their faith or their sexuality. It's a pointless exercise that can never be anything but acrimonious and will only highlight unnecessary amounts of difference about things that ultimately don't really matter. Buy the steak you like, worship the god you love, neck with the people that you treasure and don't worry about the numbers. — Merlin Mann

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

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

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

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

Joining a Facebook group about creative productivity is like buying a chair about jogging. — Merlin Mann

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

Although your time and attention are finite, the demands on your time and attention are infinite. — Merlin Mann

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

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

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

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

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

Workflow is understanding your job, understanding your tools, and then not thinking about it any more. — Merlin Mann

I'm a project manager, not a magician. Magicians have way cooler hats. — Merlin Mann

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

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

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

Email is such a funny thing. People hand you these single little messages that are no heavier than a river pebble. But it doesn't take long until you have acquired a pile of pebbles that's taller than you and heavier than you could ever hope to move, even if you wanted to do it over a few dozen trips. But for the person who took the time to hand you their pebble, it seems outrageous that you can't handle that one tiny thing. — Merlin Mann

Never let the guy with the broom decide how many elephants can be in the parade. — Merlin Mann

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

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

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

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

A priority is observed, not manufactured or assigned. Otherwise, it's necessarily not a priority. — Merlin Mann

People either make things or they don't. Inspiration is a poster. — Merlin Mann

Thinking can really be the enemy of action, and thinking can be the enemy of reality. — Merlin Mann

People will always despise you if you end up doing less stupid BS than they choose to suffer. — Merlin Mann

Make the time to be scared of more interesting things — Merlin Mann

Stop. I'm not going to take any more input until I've made something with what I got. — Merlin Mann

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

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

Before you sweat the logistics of focus: first, care. Care intensely ... Obsessing over the slipperiness of focus, bemoaning the volume of those devil "distractions," and constantly reassessing which shiny new "system" might make your life suddenly seem more sensible - these are all terrifically useful warning flares that you may be suffering from a deeper, more fundamental problem ... Know in your heart that what you're making or doing matters ... First, care. Then, as you'll happily and unavoidably discover, all that "focus" business has a peculiar way of taking care of itself. — Merlin Mann

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

Come back, paragraphs. America needs you. — Merlin Mann

You're gonna die. You're gonna die. And nobody's gonna care which version of the iPhone you used to make something on Twitter, or to go and post about your bowel movement on Facebook. And I'm not even talking about legacy; I'm talking about the fact that I personally feel most alive when I'm making something, and I feel least alive when I'm being led around by some obnoxious use of my attention that I wasn't aware of. To me, that's the thing. You can buy the jogging shoes and you can buy the Runner's World, but until you put them on and walk out the door every day, you're just a fat man. — Merlin Mann

If you want to make a chili, you're going to break some cows. — Merlin Mann

When you die, no one's going to remember what iPhone you had. — Merlin Mann