Quality not Quantity

"It's not how many hours you put in but how much you put into the hours."

One day, in a very busy factory, an intricate piece of machinery broke down. The company's best machinists were called in to diagnose the problem, but they couldn't come up with a solution.

Finally, they suggested a specialist be brought in. The master mechanic arrived, looked the apparatus over thoroughly, and then asked for the smallest hammer they had on hand. He then pecked on a critical area of the machine with the hammer, and said, "Now turn on the power. It ought to work." His small peck apparently released a mechanism that had jammed, and sure enough, the machine worked.

Later when the specialist sent a bill for $100 the managers were astounded! One hundred dollars was an exorbitant fee for one small peck! They asked him to sent them and itemized statement. He complied, but didn't reduce his fee. His statement read: $1 for pecking $99 for knowing where to peck.

A similar story is told about a young medical student who asked an experienced surgeon how long it would take him to learn how to perform an appendectomy. The surgeon replied, "Three hours." Then he added, "And three years to learn what to do if anything goes wrong."

Put as much as you can into every hour. You'll have much more to draw upon later!