Focus on the Few Things That Actually Matter

In a list of prospective clients you can spend your time pursuing, a few of them are more worth your time than all the rest combined. You may need to reach out to all of them, but it makes sense to start with those few that matter.

The hundreds of emails in your inbox all need to be processed, but only a small portion of them are in some way related to your goals. The messages that will produce the outcomes that move you closer to what you want deserves your attention.

A dashboard with dozens of metrics can make it seem as if everything is important, the number of phone calls, the number of emails, the client meetings, and the average size of a deal by product category. While all of these metrics are useful, none of them speak to whether or not your dream client is engaged with you around a project to improve their results—and whether they are making and keeping the commitments that move their project forward.

You have limited time during your workday. If you are like most people, you have more work than you can effectively complete in a day, a week, a month, a quarter, and in some cases, a year. Because this is true, one of the primary variables in performance is the ability to ruthlessly prioritize your work based on a values-based hierarchy.

Those things that belong to others and find their way to your desk need to be returned to their rightful owners. You must push trivialities and distractions to the bottom of that value-based hierarchy. The top of your hierarchy must include what is most important by the impact it has on your goals.

The greater the impact, the more that work deserves your time and focus. If the work you are considering is going to have little effect on the outcomes you are pursuing, it may require your attention, but it can’t be allowed to crowd out the few things that matter.

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