Concentrate Your Powers

WARREN BUFFETT, Bill Gates Jr., and Bill Gates Sr. were chatting together at a social event when an executive approached them with a question. “What would you gentlemen say is the most important quality for success in business?”

According to bystanders, all three of these highly successful businessmen turned to the questioner and said simultaneously: “Focus!”

In a world of nonstop distraction, from telephone calls and voice mail to text messages, the Internet, and the people all around you, your ability to focus single-mindedly is absolutely essential for your success. In fact, all real success in life comes from developing the ability to concentrate your time, attention, and talents on those few tasks that can make all the difference to your success in your work. This is the real purpose for defining key result areas and setting standards of performance.

All of time management boils down to asking and answering a single question: “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?” Perhaps the best definition of time management is that it is “your ability to choose the sequence of events.” Your ability to organize your time in sequence so that you are clear about what you do first, what you do second, and what you do not do at all, is the key to doubling and tripling your productivity and the productivity of the people who report to you.

The Law of Three

Through more than thirty years of studying and teaching time management, I have discovered a powerful principle that is potentially life- and career-transforming. This Law of Three says that no matter how many tasks you perform in the course of a month, there are only three tasks and activities that account for 90 percent of the value of the contribution you make to your business.

In this sense, the word contribution is quite powerful in determining your success in your career. The more valuable your contribution to the achievement of the overall goals of your business, the more valuable and important you become as well.

Three Magic Questions

How do you determine your “big three”? Simple. You ask the three magic questions.

1. If I could only do one thing, all day long, what one task or activity would contribute the most value to my business? Make a list of everything you do in the course of a month, and then you review this list. The one activity that you engage in that contributes the most will probably jump out at you. Put a circle around that one task.

2. If I could only do two things, all day long, which would be the second activity that would contribute the greatest value to my business? Usually, this item will jump out at you as well. You may have to compare and contrast different things you do to be sure that you have the right answer, but it is usually not difficult.

3. If I could only do three things, all day long, what would be the third task that would contribute the most value to my business? I have conducted this exercise with many thousands of executives and business owners. Without exception, in every case, in a matter of a minute or two, people become crystal clear about the three most important things that they can do (or should be doing) that would contribute the greatest value to themselves and their businesses.

This Law of Three means that everything other than those three big jobs falls into the 10 percent category. Every other activity is of low value or no value. The primary reason for failure in the executive suite is that too many people spend too much time working on too many tasks that have little or no value to themselves or their business. They make no contribution at all.

Define the Big Three for Others

Once you have developed absolute clarity about the most valuable use of your time, you should help each person who reports to you to identify his or her “big three” as well. You can transform the productivity and performance of your entire work unit by helping your employees to develop absolute clarity and focus on the three tasks that they can do, all day long, that will make the greatest contribution.

One of the greatest kindnesses that you can do for your staff members is to encourage them to answer this question for themselves. It is only when employees know their most important tasks that they can perform to distinction. It is only when they are working on their key tasks, and doing them well, in a timely fashion, that they can make their maximum contribution and can both be paid more and promoted faster.

The three words for maximum performance are clarity, focus, and concentration. Once you have decided on the most important task you can complete, your next duty to yourself is to concentrate single-mindedly on that one task until it is 100 percent complete.

Task completion is the key to success in work and in life. Important task completion is even more central to success. And completing your most important tasks before anything else will do more to put your career onto the fast track than any other activity you can engage in at work. (Please read my AMACOM minibook on Time Management for more ideas for increasing your productivity, performance, and output.)