[caseysoftware]

Part of the problem is that the teams that lost focused probably quietly dissolved before they got to any of our attentions. (Maybe Yahoo?)

Personally, I find that there's a simple question:

Does this move the company, project, or team forward in a measurable way?

If the answer is "No" then you need to take a long hard look at it and explicitly decide that it's either okay and then stop doing it (ideal) or limit it. And that varies from person to person. Spending time with my toddler is okay in my book. HackerNews, less so.

The next level question is:

Is this the most effective task to this move the company, project, or team forward?

And that is way harder to answer.

[davemel37]

> Does this move the company, project, or team forward in a measurable way?

I think a better question is, "Is this task consistent with our core values, value proposition, and beliefs."

Limiting yourself to only measurable activities will cut you off from serendipity, which alone can make or break a startup.

[caseysoftware]

Good point. And agreed.

But if the problem is lack of focus, there's a balance in there. And it's going to be different for everyone. I think that's a useful bit to remember.

[traviscj]

Tangential, but your two questions struck me as isomorphic to computing the gradient and finding a maximum in the mathematical optimization sense. There to, there is a huge difference in the amount of work between the two: one is a for loop, one is nonpolynomial.