Putting first things first

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For those of you who are familiar with Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People," you may recognize the title of this blog post as being habit #3. I recently (re-)learned the 7 habits, and this one resonated with me because it's one that I have trouble with. Putting first things first means that you can't do everything in the 24 hours you're given each day. You have to focus on your highest priorities and say no to the unimportant things. I've written about priorities before, but somewhere in the last few months, I stopped following my own advice. One of the casualties is my writing. I'm embarrassed to say how little I've written this year, even with my idea of writing during my commute.

This is a shame since writing is important to me. It makes me happy, and it helps define who I am. It's time for me to put writing first, or at least ahead of the less important things that I've been spending my time on. This blog post is my way of publicly holding myself accountable to following through on the habit. Will it work? Hard to say, but if I don't write, I hope it's because I'm doing something that's even more important than it.