Deciding What to Do Each Day

Strategic entrepreneurs don’t start out their days by asking, “What do I want to do today?” They ask themselves, “What are the most important, highest-leverage activities that need to get done today?”

Take, for instance, Jack Welch. When he took over as CEO of General Electric, points out the Harvard Business Review , he realized that “what needed to be done … was not the overseas expansion HE WANTED to launch. It was getting rid of businesses that, no matter how profitable, could not be number one or number two in their industries.”

As an entrepreneur, you have to focus on the needs of your company when choosing how to spend your time. Are you picking tasks based on what you want? Or are you making those decisions based on what your company needs from you?

If you pick the most important task to work on first, you’ll be more effective and your company will be more profitable.

(Ed. Note: Rich Schefren is arguably one of the world’s best small-business strategists. His marketing strategies have been featured in The Wall Street Journal , and he’s appeared on every major television network, including ABC, CBS, and NBC. Rich’s businesses have done over $35 million in sales, and he currently coaches many of today’s top Internet gurus and service providers on streamlining their businesses while exploding their profits.)