As with any business, and maybe even more so in real estate, having priorities is crucial in determining where our energies are best and most efficiently focused. I recognize that the different facets of any business (management, marketing, and production) are equally important in their own ways, but I'm wondering how you prioritize them and how you prioritize the activities that fall within each of them. For example, we could all agree that marketing is important, but standing in a room all day for a week straight stuffing envelopes is not a good use of our time. We'd be best served outsourcing that somehow and spending time meeting brokers/real estate agents, looking at houses, etc. etc. It's this sort of thing that I'm referring to.

Being a new investor who must do almost everything on his own, I'm interested: Where do you think your time, energy, and money is best served?

(This is intended to be a relatively open question. I'm not really looking for anything in particular.)