I didn’t get much from this book, but there are some parts I liked.

“Execution is the single greatest market differentiator. Great companies and successful individuals execute better than their competition. The barrier standing between you and the life you are capable of living is a lack of consistent execution. Effective execution will set you free. It is the path to accomplish the things you desire.”

“Most people know how to get back in shape— eat better, exercise more— they just don’t do it. It’s not a knowledge problem; it’s an execution problem.”

“The fact is every week counts! Every day counts! Every moment counts! We need to be conscious of the reality that execution happens daily and weekly, not monthly or quarterly.”

“And just like you do at the end of a calendar year, every 12 weeks you take a break, celebrate, and reload. It might be a three-day weekend or a weeklong vacation; the important thing is that you take time out to reflect, regroup, and reenergize.”

“The secret to living your life to its potential is to value the important stuff above your own comfort. Therefore, the critical first step to executing well is creating and maintaining a compelling vision of the future that you want even more than you desire your own short-term comfort, and then aligning your shorter term goals and plans, with that long-term vision.”

“Without a compelling vision, you will discover there is no reason to go through the pain of change.”

“Vision is the starting point of all high performance. You create things twice; first mentally, then physically. The biggest barrier to high performance is not the physical manifestation but the mental creation. You will never outpace your mental models. Vision is the first place where you engage your thinking about what is possible for you.”

“The first step is to create a personal vision, a vision that clearly captures and articulates what you want in life. The personal vision should define the life you want to live in all areas, including spiritual, relationships, family, income, lifestyle, health, and community. The personal vision creates the foundation for an emotional link to your business and career objectives so that there is a strong alignment between what you pursue in your business and the life you desire to live.”

“In 12 week planning, you identify the top one to three things that will have the greatest impact, and pursue those with intensity. The 12 week plan focuses on a few key areas and creates the energy and urgency to act.”

“Your current actions are creating your future. If you want to know what your future holds, look to your actions; they are the best predictor of your future. You want to predict your future health, look at your current eating and exercise habits. You want to predict the health of your marriage, look at your interactions with your spouse. You want to predict your career path and future income, look at the actions you take each business day. Your actions tell the story.”

“The starting point for an effective weekly plan is your 12 week plan. The 12 week plan contains all of the tactics you need to execute in order to achieve your 12 week goals. Each tactic has a designated week for completion, and these tactics drive your weekly plan by dictating your daily actions. The weekly plan then is simply a derivative of the 12 week plan— in essence a one-twelfth slice of the 12 week plan. To use your weekly plan effectively, you will need to spend the first 15 or 20 minutes at the beginning of each week to review your progress from the past week and plan the upcoming one. In addition, the first five minutes of each day should be spent reviewing your weekly plan to plan that day’s activities.”

“Productive tension is the uncomfortable feeling you get when you’re not doing the things you know you need to do.”

“An effective breakout block is at least three-hours long and spent on things other than work. It is time scheduled away from your business during normal business hours that you will use to refresh and reinvigorate your mind, so that when you return to work, you can engage with more focus and energy.”

“Results are not the attainment of greatness, but simply confirmation of it. You become great long before the results show it. It happens in an instant, the moment you choose to do the things you need to do to be great.”