Enjoy this 7 part series on Advanced Time Management!

Most Important Actions

This one is a killer!

If you’re already familiar with the Pareto 80/20 principle, then you’ll know that all actions are not equal. A few actions do most of the work, while a vast majority are simply a waste of time.

In your work, for example, you were hired for a reason. What is that reason? How does that compare with what you’re doing during the day? If your job is sales, then the activities that directly cause sales are far more important than anything else. If your job is keeping customers happy, then any time you’re not engaging with a customer you’re probably wasting time.

If you’re an entrepreneur, only 3 things matter: leads, sales, and fulfillment… in that order. So your time should be mostly spent on tasks that directly attribute to bringing in more customers or serving current ones. Anything else is fluff.

If you’re a parent, few things matter more than building a secure emotional connection with your child. How many hours did you spend directly focusing on that today?

If you want to manage your weight, your focus should be on food shopping and preparation, as most of your health will be managed by what you eat. Is this being treated like a priority?

Go through your list and carefully rate each activity out of 10 according to how much impact it has on whatever goal it’s attached to. In any given field – work, relationships, health – you’re looking for the ONE action that has the MOST impact. You should already be starting to think about how to get to a place where you’re only doing that one action.

By this point, you should now be able to identify the 20% of tasks that matter most, either for getting things done or living with integrity (hopefully both). Start allow the idea of cutting the bottom 80% to blossom in your mind.

Stay tuned for Part 3!

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