Back in the restaurant, I used to work for a guy that always liked to say, "We have to major in the minors."  This would usually come up around inspection time, which was once every quarter.  His idea was that by the time we got to all the items on the inspection that cost us small points each round, the bigger items would be a given, something that we would OBVIOUSLY be scoring on.  Through this manner of thought, it seemed obvious that our customers would benefit from his philosophy.  I'm not sure if the inspection changed so much or if I just changed so much, but a while after he moved on, I realized that a lot of the time, even though we were majoring in the minors and nailing a lot of the smaller value inspection items, we weren't scoring any better.  After looking at what we were missing, it always seemed that of the dozen or so high value criteria, we'd miss one, and we'd miss it slightly.  For example, missing 2 or 3 signs out of 215 items on the buffet.  Finding one item not labled with a production date in the cooler amid hundreds of prepared ingredients.  One guy not wearing his nametag.

That was when I ran a copy of the inspection form and highlighted-highlit-highlitered(I like this one the best)- all the high-value items, and blacked out the rest.  I decided we were going to major in the majors.  Some of the smaller ones got overlooked, sure, but not by just us... sometimes by the corporate inspector, too.  When we consistently hit the high value criteria, our scores were consistently safe and I never EVER failed an inspection, unlike the several restaurants around me, regardless of how many of my managers I had to fire or arrest, which was 4 times as many as my peers.

I liken this to nurtrition and working out.  So many times I'll come around a corner and hear people talking about the best diet supplements, or the arm workout that Mr. Olympia is using, or proper meal timing, or some other nonsense.  Ninety percent of the time, I get the impression that these same people aren't being strenuously active 3 times or more per week, aren't eating high quality whole foods, drinking adequate amounts of water, or counting their calories.  They are too busy majoring in the minors.  Unfortunately, these other four things are what I consider the "majors."  These are the things that, if you get them right consistently, will allow you to make significant gains even if you miss the other smaller things.  If, however, you don't consistently execute the majors, you will not make significant gains no matter how many of the minors you perform perfectly.  Are you playing in the right league?