When you’re busy in your business, doing the myriad of things that are vying for your attention, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture.

When that happens we can find ourselves caught up in work that is far less important than the work we could be doing, or to coin a phrase, we find ourselves “tripping over the pennies to make dollars”.

We’ve all been there, maybe more than any of us care to admit.

Stephen Covey called it “majoring in the minors”.

When you catch yourself, there’s no point in beating yourself up about it, the important thing is to catch yourself and then course-correct.

We always want to be looking for the 20% of the work that brings us 80% of the results. Or if you prefer, you can ask yourself:

“Is this a 10% idea or a 10X idea?”

This is an idea attributed to Roger Enrico who was CEO of Pepsi from 1996 – 2001 who is quoted as saying:

“I want people to work on the left side of the decimal point.”

But here’s the thing, this isn’t about making massive leaps forward, or reinventing your business. It’s about looking for ways to evolve and improve gradually, to make progress.

That might sound like a contradiction, however, most big ideas are implemented step by step. It’s a process rather than a flick of the switch.