First vs. Important

While perusing the news a few days ago, I saw an article about Iowa's place in the political landscape. The author of the article (not me) made the comment that Iowa was important because it was first not first because it was important. Again, I am not about to wade into a conversation about the validity or lack of basis for his comment, but it did cause me to think about how many people approach the acts in their circus.

What if, before you took on your first task, you thought to yourself, "Am I tackling this because it is important or because it is first? Too often we take on something because it is first in our mind, first in our lineup or first in someone else's priorities. It may be the first thing that seems easy on our list or the first item that won't cause us to have to do something outside our comfort zone. Sometimes "first" and "important" may be synomous, but many times they are miles apart.

My hunch is that if we all spent more of our time on the important, we'd get more of the things done that would make our circus more successful.