I have read or tried a lot of excellent techniques on time management, setting goals, achieving greatness, etc.  I start off in one direction, then get side tracked and move in another direction, and many times at the end of the day/week/month, I haven’t done much.  My problem was too much of everything.

Having too many wants, passions, concerns, goals, techniques will pull you in too many directions and your mind cannot handle the chaos of having too many things to do for too many projects.
A powerful way to “realize” the best direction to focus your energies, talents, drive, and resources is by ranking each want/goal/need on a scale of 1-10 in categories of passion, execution, and financial upside.

Being able to pinpoint where your focus should be will help you excel at one new business opportunity or income stream, rather than be mediocre at many.  This technique helps you narrow down all the choices you have and choose the direction best suited to YOU and YOUR GOALS.

Here is how it works:

Create a grid and list three or four (or all) of business opportunities, ventures, or current positions.  Keep these on the left.

Across the top list these three categories:
Passion / Execution (ease and probability of achieving)/ Financial Upside over 3 years (choose your own time frame)

Rank across each opportunity (1-10) in each category.  10 is the high number, i.e. high passion, highly achievable based on how much time and training you will need, high compensation.  Try not to use the same number ranking in any column.  Be true to yourself and rank honestly.

Complete all columns BEFORE you total the rankings in the last column.
Here’s a sample:

Opportunity                           Passion         Execution       Financial Upside       TOTAL

Real Estate Multi-Unit               6                     4                           9                               19
Real Estate single family            9                     9                           8                               26
Ebay sales                                      3                    10                          5                               18
Collectible sales                            4                     7                           4                               15
Tupperware sales                          1                     6                           3                              10
Clothing design                            10                    3                          2                               15
Karaoke singing                            2                     1                           0                                3

From these numbers, I can see that single family home real estate investing is most likely where I should direct my focus, and forget about entering a karaoke contest.  Although my passion is high for clothing design, the financial viability is low, the time commitment extremely high, so that goes on the back burner.

I hope this helps you find your compass setting.  Emotions, opportunities, and financial needs will change constantly.  Every once in a while, retake this “test” so you can stay on track.  I think it will help me stay the course too.