Know what you can't do

In order to be really successful at anything you need to know what you can do and what you can't do. This is pretty clear as long as we talk about things like skiing, swimming or playing the piano. In case of skiing there are basically three questions

1. Are you interested in skiing?         (Interest, Motivation, Enthusiams)
2. Can you ski?                                (skill, knowledge)
3. Are you physically able to ski?      (prerequisite)

If you answer yes to these three questions you will probably look forward to a weekend in the mountains. When you are not interested in skiing you will lack the motivation and hence chances are pretty high that it won't be good for you or the people you ski with. 
When you can't ski, it can still be good but it might get more costly because you will need to take skiing lessons. In the last case, if you are temporarily or permanently unable to ski then this is a no-brainer, you won't go skiing.
In the work place it is important to know which tasks you are interested in, which tasks you can already perform and if you fulfill the prerequisites to perform a certain task. Focus on the tasks that really interest you, make sure you can perform these tasks and then just do it!

The value of face-to-face meetings

Even though we can do almost every meeting without being in the same room it is critical for some meetings to be face-to-face. If possible, it is always good to have the first meeting with a new person or group face-to-face because you might get a very different impression and you can't repeat the first impression. Note that this is not just the case for very important meetings, this applies also to your regular business partners and direct reports.
I found that, most of the time, I got a stronger relationship with people I first met face-to-face. This is no surprise since 93% of our communication is impacted by non-verbal cues. In addition to that you will probably go on some non-business activities like lunch or dinner where you get a chance to learn more of the other person in a non-business setting. These meetings and discussions help to form a different, more refined view, of someone than just the regular phone or web meetings. Keep this in mind before you decide about the next travel budget. Nevertheless once you met,  I found that it is perfectly fine to work with them remotely as long as you can see them face-to-face on a regular basis.

Ship something today!

It seems that we sometimes spend 90% of our time talking about all the great things we would do if some things were different. If we had more people onsite then ... if we had a greater budget then ... if we had more experienced people then ... etc. Does that sound familiar to you? If it does, challenge this situation! Ask why we have to talk so much before we can get anything changed, started or done. Raise the urgency level to speed up the discussions and get ready to make a decision. Yes, this is part of what management and leadership is about, you have to make decisions. You will not always have the data you need and so you need to get comfortable with making decisions based on incomplete data. Just to be clear, I'm not recommending you to jump into action after one short discussion but instead of getting lost in Analysis-Paralysis you should strive to get started.
What counts in the end is that you and your team have delivered something useful. You will not get credit for all the great thoughts you had or for all the huge documents you've produced but for what products or services you have provided to your customers.