After learning that we should spend most of our time focused on important work the question then becomes "What is important work, exactly?" Are we talking about operational tasks? or creative ones?

The answer is, it depends. Ultimately, most jobs involve more than a singular role or task. So basically, different roles will be more important on different days.

Ideally, you should be focusing on work that's most important on any specific day. For example, some days you may need to focus on your clients and then on other days you are with your employees.

In order to effectively juggle these roles and get your work done, it helps to create role titles and role statements for each of the many hats you may wear. A role title is your current focus while a role statement should lay out where you want to be.

Let's say you are a mobile app coder for an up and coming software startup, your role title might be, "Professional Mobile App Developer". Then you will want to create a dynamic role statement such as, "I will make every effort to be an excellent mobile app developer by learning how to code for both iOS and Android platforms"

It's important to set achievable goals to stay on track with your statement. Taking the above example your goal might be, "I will take and complete a course on developing multi-platform apps in the next month". After a month, assess how productively you have worked to meet your goal.