What Are Efficient Actions and Behaviors to Be Even More Successful?

You didn’t start your business to spend 40 minutes figuring out how to fix the spacing in a Google Doc.

Yet here you are, buried in admin tasks, responding to client service emails at 11 p.m., and debating whether “optimize” or “streamline” sounds more impressive in a pitch deck.

Sound familiar?

Here’s the deal: the most successful CEOs aren’t superhuman. They’re just super selective about how they spend their valuable time. They’ve mastered the art of identifying their highest-payoff activities, the ones that actually move the business forward, and then ruthlessly delegating everything else.

And the best part? You can do this too. You don’t need a Fortune 500 badge to think like a top-tier CEO. You just need to stop doing $10 an hour tasks when you're supposed to focus on $10,000 and $50,000 decisions.

Let’s break it down.

A helpful question to ask yourself is:

“When I only have 2 hours today, what do I need to do that would have the biggest impact on moving my business forward to the next level?”

So, Why Are You Still Doing the Other Activities?

To help you with this concept, let’s break it down into 6 steps. 

Final Thought: You’re the Bottleneck and the Breakthrough

Put an end to the procrastination cycle and make progress on your goals with my Guide to Stopping Procrastination! Download my complimentary Guide now by going to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/podcast. 

I’m the author of many books, including, Excuses Don’t Count; Results Rule, Live Life with No Regrets, No Excuses, The Guide to Stopping Procrastination, The Power of Visualization, My Gratitude Journal, the Work Life Balance Emergency Kit, and The Roadmap To Success with Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard, and more.  

Aim for what you want each and every day!  

Anne Bachrach

The Accountability Coach™

Unlock a blueprint to creating and having your ideal business and ideal life by scheduling your free consultation with me today!

Want more proven business success tips and resources? Subscribe to my blog by going to www.acountabilitycoach.com/blog.

Go to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com to check out for yourself how I, as your Accountability Coach™, can help you get and stay focused on you highest payoff activities that put you in the highest probability position to achieve your professional and personal goals, so you can enjoy the kind of business and life you truly want and deserve.

I’m the author of many books, including, Excuses Don’t Count; Results Rule, Live Life with No Regrets, No Excuses, The Guide to Stopping Procrastination, The Power of Visualization, My Gratitude Journal, the Work Life Balance Emergency Kit, and The Roadmap To Success with Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard, and more.

Aim for what you want each and every day!

Anne Bachrach

The Accountability Coach™

Get your daily Accountability Minute shot of a single, simple, doable idea, so you can start your day off on the "right foot". You can find The Accountability Minute on your favorite platform

Transcript

What Are Efficient Actions and Behaviors to Be Even More Successful? 

You didn’t start your business to spend 40 minutes figuring out how to fix the spacing in a Google Doc.

Yet here you are, buried in admin tasks, responding to client service emails at 11 p.m., and debating whether “optimize” or “streamline” sounds more impressive in a pitch deck.

Sound familiar?

Here’s the deal: the most successful CEOs aren’t superhuman. They’re just super selective about how they spend their valuable time. They’ve mastered the art of identifying their highest-payoff activities, the ones that actually move the business forward, and then ruthlessly delegating everything else.

And the best part? You can do this too. You don’t need a Fortune 500 badge to think like a top-tier CEO. You just need to stop doing $10 an hour tasks when you're supposed to focus on $10,000 and $50,000 decisions.

Let’s break it down.

First, What Are “High Payoff Activities”?

In plain English: these are the tasks only you should be doing. The ones that generate the biggest return for your time, energy, and focus.

Think about:

·         Creating strategic partnerships

·         Developing new revenue channels

·         Building your personal brand or thought leadership

·         Securing investor funding or large-scale contracts

·         Vision-casting and future planning
 
 

Basically, your high payoff activities (HPAs) are the big-picture activities that actually grow your business and not just run it.

A helpful question to ask yourself is:

 “When I only have 2 hours today, what do I need to do that would have the biggest impact on moving my business forward to the next level?”

That’s your high payoff zone.

So, Why Are You Still Doing the Other Activities?

Because delegation feels risky. Or messy. Or slower, at first.

And because your inner voice says things like, “By the time I explain it, I might as well just do it myself.”

Guess what? That mindset is exactly what’s keeping you from your next level.

Here’s what Jeff Bezos did early on: He focused on long-term thinking and high-leverage activities like Amazon Prime and AWS, which now account for the majority of Amazon’s success. Do you think he was spending his days proofreading product descriptions?

Meanwhile, Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, knew her gift was storytelling and marketing. She was great at building the brand, not logistics. So, she hired for the operations side early and let them own it.

Top-performing CEOs treat time like investors treat capital. They ask: Where’s the highest return?

To help you with this concept, let’s break it down into 6 steps. 

Step 1: Track Where Your Time Is Actually Going

Before you can delegate or rework anything, you need a reality check. Track your time for two weeks. Yes, every task you do.

You might be shocked to find out you’re spending:

• 3 hours tweaking Canva templates
   
   
• 2 hours in low-value meetings
   
   
• 90 minutes refreshing your inbox hoping for good news
   
   
• And 7 hours doing things your Virtual Assistant (VA) could handle in half the time
   
   

A 2023 survey by Asana found that the average worker spends 58% of their day on “work about work”, which are activities like searching for information, attending meetings, or chasing status updates.

Translation: most people are busy; however, not productive. And you, my friend, don’t have time for that nonsense.

Download my complimentary Time Log Exercise to help you and your team members be even more time efficient, so you are in a higher probability position to achieve your goals in the timeframe you desire by going to: https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/time-log/.

Step 2: Apply the 70/20/10 Rule

You don’t need to outsource everything tomorrow. Use the breakdown to help you.

• 70% of your time: High-payoff activities only you can do
   
   
• 20%: Delegated work that requires light management or review
   
   
• 10%: Total freedom to explore, brainstorm, and recharge
   
   

This model helps you protect your energy and avoid being everyone’s default tech support and everything else person.

Warren Buffett is a master of this principle. He’s known for saying ‘no’ to almost everything that isn’t in his “circle of competence.” His calendar is often wide open because he focuses his energy on making a few critical decisions a year and letting his team handle the rest.

Think about that next time you’re fighting with your inbox at 8 p.m.

Step 3: Build Your “Delegate or Automate” Muscle

When someone else can do it 80% as well as you, give it to them. Seriously. You may be pleasantly surprised to learn they can do it even better or faster than you did.

You’re not handing off your legacy. You’re freeing up capacity.

Start with the tasks that drain your energy and don’t need your brain power, like:

• Email filtering
• Calendar management
• Invoicing or bookkeeping
• Client onboarding workflows
• Social media scheduling
• Some client service work
   
   

Tools like Zapier, ClickUp, and Calendly are your new best friends. So are freelancers, VAs, and smart contractors who live for the tasks that make you yawn and you don’t like to do.

And hey, here’s a stat that might inspire you: according to McKinsey, 30% of activities in 60% of occupations could and can be automated with existing technology.

In other words, you’re likely still doing tasks you haven’t needed to do in years because new technology can do it for you.

Download my Free Delegation Exercise and discover the power of effective delegation, by going to https://bit.ly/Delegation-Exercise.

Step 4: Say “No” With a Smile

Let’s talk about boundaries for a second. Because when your week is jammed with low-impact favors, coffee chats, or “just a quick pick-your-brain” calls, you’ll never get to your high payoff work.

Here’s a phrase that works wonders:

“I’d love to support this; however, my current focus is [insert priority]. Let’s reconnect after [insert time frame].” Or “I’ll get in touch when I have more time to help you.”

It’s polite. Clear. And it protects your time like a velvet rope protects a VIP room.

Elon Musk, for all his quirks, is known for banning unnecessary meetings. At Tesla, he tells employees: “Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren't adding value.”

Is it a bit intense? Sure. However, it gets the point across that your time is a non-renewable resource.

Step 5: Install a Feedback Loop

Here’s where the magic happens: review what worked. Often.

Every Friday, ask yourself:

• What did I do this week that actually moved the needle forward to my business being even more successful?
• What tasks should I never do again?
• What is the highest payoff activity I need to do next week to move the needle forward?
• What can I simplify even more next week?
   
   

That short reflection time creates continuous improvement and builds your delegation muscles.

Because yes, you’ll mess up. Someone will drop the ball. A VA might misread an email. Every hiccup helps you refine your systems, so you can scale with less friction.

Step 6: Learn From the Greats (Steal Like a CEO)

Let’s look at a few high performers who’ve nailed this concept:

• Tim Cook (Apple): Known for mastering operational excellence. He built Apple’s supply chain to run like clockwork, so Steve Jobs could focus on product vision. That clear division of responsibility created the most valuable company in the world.
   
   
• Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo): As CEO, she focused on future-proofing the company with “Performance with Purpose,” delegating product-level operations to trusted leaders while she drove culture and innovation.
   
   
• Oprah Winfrey: She knows her superpowers are connection and storytelling. That’s why she built an entire media empire around her ability to communicate, while her teams manage logistics, partnerships, and execution behind the scenes.
   
   

They don’t do it all. They do what only they can do, and they do it well.

Final Thought: You’re the Bottleneck and the Breakthrough

Here’s the truth: when you’re the CEO who’s still micromanaging client emails, you’re not running a company, you’re running yourself into the ground.

It’s time to let go of the guilt and the glorified hustle. You don’t need to be everywhere. You need to be where it matters most.

Because the best businesses aren’t built by the busiest founders, they’re built by the ones who know what to focus on, whom to trust, and when to get out of their own way.

So, block some time this week. Audit your calendar. Make a list of everything that’s not a CEO-level task and start letting go.

Your business is waiting for you to lead it, not babysit it.

Decode the Mega Successful Mindset Habits That Set Them Apart by going to 

https://bit.ly/mindset-habits. 

Explore 7 Habits of Super Successful People and What You Can Learn from Them by going to https://bit.ly/Successful-Habits. 

Put an end to the procrastination cycle and make progress on your goals with my Guide to Stopping Procrastination! Download my complimentary Guide now by going to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/podcast. 

Unlock a blueprint to creating and having your ideal business and ideal life by scheduling your free consultation with me today! 

Are you ready to take your business to the next level? Get the proven strategies and resources you need for massive success. Subscribe to my blog now by going to https://accountabilitycoach.com/blog and start transforming your business today!

Get your daily Accountability Minute shot of a single, simple, doable idea, so you can start your day off on the "right foot". You can find The Accountability Minute on https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/my-podcast/ as well as on most podcast platforms and in most English-speaking countries.

Connect with me on: 

- Connect with me on Linked-in (https://www.linkedin.com/in/annebachrach)

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Go to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com to check out for yourself how I, as your Accountability Coach™, can help you get and stay focused on you highest payoff activities that put you in the highest probability position to achieve your professional and personal goals, so you can enjoy the kind of business and life you truly want and deserve. 

Check out my proven business accelerator resources by going to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/coaching-store/.  

I’m the author of many books, including, Excuses Don’t Count; Results Rule, Live Life with No Regrets, No Excuses, The Guide to Stopping Procrastination, The Power of Visualization, My Gratitude Journal, the Work Life Balance Emergency Kit, and The Roadmap To Success with Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard, and more.  

Aim for what you want each and every day!  

Anne Bachrach

The Accountability Coach™

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