That, he explains, is a running tally of how he’s spending his time, and whether he’s sticking to a big goal he set for himself years ago: to spend 50 percent of his workdays on creative pursuits like research and writing books, 30 percent on teaching-related activities, and 20 percent on all the other things he has to do.

Collins is a whole lot more diligent about tracking his progress than I've ever been, though.

These aren’t ballpark guesstimates. Mr. Collins, who is 51, keeps a stopwatch with three separate timers in his pocket at all times, stopping and starting them as he switches activities. Then he regularly logs the times into a spreadsheet.

Collins also logs how many hours he spends sleeping, at night and during naps, and logs a rolling average which he compares to the amount of sleep he needs over 10 days (70 hours).

Collins is also laser-focused on being a ruthless editor, and saying no to taking on too many speaking engagements or consulting gigs (at a hefty $60-65k a pop), book tours, or staff members.

This orientation — a willingness to say no and focus on what not to do as much as what to do — stems from a conversation that Mr. Collins had with one of his mentors, the late Peter F. Drucker, the pioneer in social and management theories.

“Do you want to build ideas first and foremost?” he recalls Mr. Drucker asking him, trying to capture his mentor’s Austrian accent. “Zen you must not build a big organization, because zen you will end up managing zat organization.”

Usually I'm distrustful of anyone who gets called a "guru" (note that people have called me that, much to my dismay), but I really enjoyed Good to Great. Collins' painstaking workflow ranked him even higher in my book. Check out the whole NYT profile: For This Guru, No Question Is Too Big.