Value Identification & Personal Leverage System
Identify the three tasks that account for 90% of your contribution and master them relentlessly.
This framework combines Tracy's chapters on Key Result Areas (Ch 7) and the Law of Three (Ch 8) into a strategic system for identifying where your personal effort creates disproportionate value and then concentrating your energy there. Key Result Areas are the five to seven specific outputs that you absolutely, positively have to deliver to do your job well. Tracy's crucial insight is that your weakest key result area sets the ceiling on your overall effectiveness. You may be excellent at six out of seven areas, but poor performance in the seventh will hold back your results and undermine your career. This creates a powerful diagnostic: identify your weakest KRA and make improving it a priority.
The Law of Three extends this analysis with a deceptively simple exercise. Tracy asks: if you could do only one thing on your task list all day long, which one task would contribute the greatest value to your work and career? After identifying that task, ask the same question again for the remaining tasks. And a third time. These three tasks will almost always account for 90% of your total value contribution. Everything else is support work that can often be delegated, deferred, or restructured.
Tracy uses a rapid list method to surface these three tasks: write down everything you do at work as fast as you can, then circle the three that contribute the most value. The combination of KRA analysis (identifying what results define your role) and the Law of Three (identifying the three activities that produce 90% of your value) creates a powerful lens for restructuring how you spend your time. The goal is to spend more and more of your day on your 'big three' and less and less on everything else.
- Every job can be broken down into five to seven Key Result Areas -- specific measurable outputs that define whether you are doing your job
- Your weakest Key Result Area sets the height at which you can use all your other skills and abilities
- Three core tasks almost always account for 90% of your value contribution
- Poor performance in a critical area leads to underachievement and frustration no matter how well you perform in other areas
- You can grade yourself on a scale of 1-10 in each KRA; wherever you give yourself a low score, that is where you should focus your development
- The ability to identify your highest-value activities and restructure your time around them is the key to career acceleration
- Define your five to seven Key Result AreasWrite down the five to seven core results that you absolutely must deliver to be considered excellent at your job. These are not activities but outputs -- the measurable results that your boss, your customers, or your business depends on. For a salesperson, this might include prospecting, building rapport, identifying needs, presenting solutions, answering objections, closing the sale, and getting resales and referrals. Discuss these with your boss to make sure you both agree on what your critical outputs are.
- Grade yourself 1-10 in each Key Result AreaGive yourself an honest score in each KRA. Identify your weakest area -- this is the bottleneck limiting your overall performance. Your weakest KRA determines how well you can use all of your other skills. Set a goal and make a plan to improve in that specific area. Ask your boss: What one skill, if I developed and did it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on my career?
- Apply the Law of Three to identify your highest-value tasksWrite down everything you do at work as quickly as you can. Then ask: If I could do only one thing on this list all day long, which one activity would contribute the greatest value? Circle it. Ask the same question again for the remaining items. Circle it. Ask a third time. Circle it. These three tasks are your 'big three' -- the activities that almost certainly account for 90% of your value contribution.
- Restructure your time around your big threeReorganize your work life so that you spend the majority of your working time on your three highest-value tasks. Get everything else off your desk through delegation, deferral, or elimination. Focus on getting your big three done before anything else each day. Once your three major tasks are complete, you will have accomplished more than most people do in a week, and you will have time for family and personal life.
They define their KRAs (campaign strategy, team leadership, budget management, analytics, cross-functional alignment, brand messaging, vendor management) and grade themselves. They discover they are a 4 out of 10 in analytics -- the weakest area. They commit to improving their data skills through a course and daily practice. They also apply the Law of Three and identify their big three as campaign strategy, team leadership, and analytics, then restructure their calendar to spend 80% of their time on these three areas.
Tracy developed the Key Result Areas concept from management research showing that every job can be broken down into five to seven critical output areas. He observed that most people never clearly identify these areas, leading them to spend excessive time on low-value activities while neglecting the results that their employers actually measure and reward. The Law of Three emerged from Tracy's work with thousands of executives and professionals, where he consistently found that when people identified their three most valuable tasks, those three accounted for approximately 90% of their total contribution -- a pattern that held across industries and roles.