Here’s the typical day for an entrepreneur I know. He arrives at the office and boots up his laptop. The first step is to check e-mail. There are a number to delete and a few that are read but left in the In-Box. Several responses are prepared and sent and one or two responses are started but saved and remain unsent. Then it’s time to check out the news at one of several news websites. This may be followed by a stop on Facebook and perhaps a scroll through a number of tweets on Twitter. Then, someone pops into his office for a conversation that lasts ten minutes or so. He then dives into a perplexing HR situation that seems to have taken a life of its own. Then there may be some time spent reviewing the previous month’s financial statement; a quick trip to the restroom; time in the hallway chatting with several members of his team; fielding a phone call and returning others, and preparing remarks that he is going to make at a lunch meeting. Before he knows it, half the morning is gone.

I’ll bet this sort of morning sounds familiar. I’ve had many just like it myself. But did you notice what’s missing? What high-yielding opportunity was identified by our entrepreneur for his urgent and immediate focus? I completely understand that we have a business to run on a day-to-day basis, and what was previously described accomplished just that. However, perhaps a closer look is needed to see how this entrepreneur could operate differently – and more effectively.

I used the term “high-yielding opportunity,” but exactly what does that mean? Here’s what I’ve learned over the years. I spent way too much time in the past with “busy” work. Sure, it needed to be done, but was I the best person to do it? Or maybe I should handle it, but it deserved to be less of a priority. While it may seem obvious, as entrepreneurs we should regularly ask the question, “What’s the best use of our time?” After all, the time we have is finite and we’ll never get it back when we squander it. So, our organization is best served when we start our day tackling the really big initiatives – initiatives that may generate significant revenues or profits; initiatives that are highly strategic in nature; initiatives that will have a major positive impact for our team or our customers, and initiatives for which we are best suited to prosecute.

Here’s another way to look at this question. At what altitude are you flying? Are you cruising along at 500-feet and down in the weeds all the time? Maybe you’re at 10,000-feet or even 30,000-feet. But wouldn’t it be amazing to stay at 100,000-feet most of the time? For me, 100,000-feet means identifying and working with large-dollar investors that will help fund our apartment acquisition program. It means collaborating with our acquisitions and development teams to refine their respective strategies that are creating the scale we wish to achieve. It means maintaining a constant awareness of the macroeconomic aspects of our industry and determining how our strategies are designed to exploit opportunities in the marketplace. It also means offering innovative ideas to our management team that will move the needle to better serve our customers. And it means developing a holistic view of our culture and spotting potential problem areas that can be addressed before they turn into raging fires.

Each entrepreneur needs to decide what flying at 100,000-feet means for him or her. A great place to start is with the organization’s vision. I like to test what I’m doing against our vision. If I have ten things on my plate, I’m going to pick the top three that are going to make the most difference in contributing to reaching this vision. And it could be a while before items #9 and #10 are addressed at which point I may eventually figure out who else might be in a better position to handle them in a more timely fashion. My goal is to work on high-yielding initiatives 60 – 75% of the time. I don’t always succeed – it’s easy to get drawn into major time-sucks that don’t add real value – but I’ve become more consistently aware of how I spend my time and now course-correct more easily.

We entrepreneurs can become adept at focusing on high-yielding initiatives if we understand our vision and choose what we do in terms of achieving that vision. Ultimately, understanding how to fly at 100,000-feet is one of the important aspects of leading our organizations.

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This blog is being written in tandem with my book, “An Entrepreneur’s Words to Live By,” available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle (My Book), as well as being available in all of the other major eBook formats.