We’re big fans of the Four Disciplines of Execution here at The Breakthrough. We use it in our own business as well as in helping business owners get clarity about "the important few".The first distinction is the “whirlwind”, all the noise and urgency of the day to day business. These are the activities that have to be performed to keep the company running. Against that, you have goals, which are important because they move the company forward, but they aren’t urgent. The whirlwind acts on you, but you have to act on goals if you’re going to get anywhere with them.It’s a bit like the difference between a coal mine and a gold field. Coal is what used to keep the engines going, and lots of men were employed to work the seam until it was exhausted (or they were – whichever came first).Gold fields were much more speculative: gold miners would find a likely place and then pan for the one nugget that made them rich. There weren’t many entrepreneurs down in the coal mines, but they were marginally more likely to have got their three meals a day than a gold miner was.In business we need both: we need to spend 80% of our time systematically and productively working the seam. But we also need to spend at least 20% of our time out of operational detail and working 'ON' the business, to ensure we execute on the plans to find our next golden nugget.