We are inundated with a “to-do list” that could fall an elephant. Identify your top two or three highest-value activities (HVAs) and focus on those. Try to work on those actions and tasks that support your HVAs first thing each day.
There is an old saying, “If you do the most important thing first every day, you will never have an unproductive day.”
An HVA is bigger than a task and more strategic than a goal. It creates laser focus and drives value for you and others. Calling a customer is a task, making a sales volume is a goal, but “consistently engaging customers in robust discussions about needs” is on a much higher order. Producing a report is a task, providing information to allow for quick and effective decision-making is of a higher value.