I think one of the best lessons I learned from a manager who helped me sift through things was a guy that used to say, interesting but unimportant. We would come back with all kinds of excuses why it didn't work and how come this happened and if this situation was different, and he would always just say, interesting but unimportant. What that taught me was to get through the fluff, focus on what is important and get the job done and that helped me a ton.