The very worst use of your time is to do very well what need not be done at all. The Pareto Principle says that 20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of the value of your activities. This means that if you have a list of ten items to accomplish, two of those items will be worth more than the other eight items altogether.

To achieve great things, you must always be concentrating on the small number of activities that contribute the greatest value to your life and your work. Your ability to discipline yourself to work on those few tasks that can make the greatest difference in your life is the key quality that makes everything else possible for you. This is the law of priority.

To apply this law immediately:

1. Make a list of everything that you do as part of your job. Analyze the list and select the three to five things that are more important than everything else put together.
2. Imagine that you are going to receive a $100,000 bonus at the end of the month if you can work on your highest priority items every minute of every day. How would that change your behavior? What would you do differently?