I love this truism shared by Steven Covey: “Anything less than a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.” So true! If you don’t define your top priorities you’ll waste you time and energy on less significant things.

Just as leaders need to figure out who they are and who they’re not, they also need to figure out what to do and what NOT to do. And you have to be just as committed to NOT doing unimportant things as you do to doing important things. That turned into a tongue twister. Bottom line? Leaders need a stop doing list.

What do you need to stop doing?

Here’s another angle on it: don’t major in minors. I think it’s easy to get sidetracked. And before you know it, you’ve started majoring in minors and minoring in majors. That is one of the traps the Pharisees fell into.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”

Matthew 23:23