The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done (Harperbusiness Essentials)

"Effective executives have learned to ask systematically and without coyness: “What do I do that wastes your time without contributing to your effectiveness?” To ask this question, and to ask it without being afraid of the truth, is a mark of the effective executive."

2. Effective executives focus on outward contribution. They gear their efforts to results rather than to work. They start out with the question, “What results are expected of me?” rather than with the work to be done, let alone with its techniques and tools.

1. Effective executives know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control.