One of my biggest desires is to be the best or world-class in whatever I am working on. Doing the most, putting in the best effort, and moving faster than the norm.
How do you know what to do to further yourself and what to do with the information? Hearing many great leaders talk on this subject, I've come to find that there are typically 3-5 primary things in any given field you want to go into. And discovering what those are, and focusing primarily on those skills, will greatly increase the speed of your career.
You can't be extraordinary by doing what everyone else is doing; that would make the term redundant. But being smart about what you spend your time on and taking the path of focusing on a few key points and becoming a master at those will give you the edge over those trying to do a million things at once.
When you're trying to figure out the most important skills to learn, I've found a fairly simple trick, and I've used it many times. Pick the most common task in the desired area and try to do it half the time it normally takes to do. You don't necessarily have to actually do the task, but mentally go through the steps. It will make it very clear what you will have to cut out to do it in that time, and leave you with the topmost important things.
Key take-aways:
1) Finding the top 3-5 things that make the biggest impact in your field and developing those skills will set you apart
2) You can't be extraordinary by doing the same thing as everyone else. So stop trying to get a ton of things done, and focus on a few skills that make the biggest impact
3) Finding those most important needle movers is as simple as trying to do the task in half the time. It forces you to cut out what's not entirely necessary and leave you with the core.