In leadership, the ability to prioritize sets you apart from others. Why? You learn to accomplish more and you get others drawn to your level of effectiveness.

To be effective, leaders must order their lives according to these questions:

What is REQUIRED?

We are all accountable to somebody- an employer, a board of directors, our stockholders or someone else. For that reason, your list of priorities must always begin with what is required of you. Anything required that is not necessary for you to do personally should be delegated or eliminated.

What Give You The Greatest RETURNS?

As a Leader, you should spend most of the time working in your areas of greatest strengths. If something can be done 80 percent as well by someone else in the organization, delegate it. If a responsibility could potentially meet that standard, then develop a person to handle it.

What Brings the Greatest REWARD?

Tim Redmond admitted, "There are many things that will catch my eye, but there are only a few things that will catch my heart". The things that bring the greatest personal reward are the firelighters in a leader's life. Nothing energizes a person the way passion does.

Activity is not necessarily accomplishment. If you want to continue to be effective, you have to work according to the Law of Priorities.

Examine the life of any great leader, and you will see him/her putting priorities in action. They recognize that activity is not necessarily accomplishment. But the best leaders seem to be able to get the Law of Priorities to work for them by satisfying multiple priorities with each activity. This actually enables them to increase their focus while reducing their number of actions.

Won't let you go without a hint... So, how do you measure your activity and determine what's most important? John Maxwell has a principle called the "Pareto Principle".

The idea is this: If you focus your attention on the activities that rank in the top 20 percent in terms of importance, you will have an 80 percent return on your effort. For example, if you have ten employees, you should give 80 percent of your time and attention to your best two people. If you have one hundred customers, the top twenty will provide you with 80 percent of your business. If your to-do list has ten items on it, the two most important ones will give you an 80 percent return on your time.

Please respond to the following questions:

1. How do you currently prioritize your responsibilities?

2. Evaluate your current list of projects/ tasks and answer the following questions:

a. Which are required of me?

b. Which give me the greatest return?

c. Which bring me the greatest reward?