Set Godin made an excellent point about the difference between urgent and important in his blog post today. My takeaway was this gem:  You will succeed in the face of change when you make the difficult decisions first.

Quite insightful. Made me think of the Microsoft Solutions Framework which advocates completing the highest risk elements of a project first to increase the chance of success. Although I do not follow the process, it has become almost second-nature for me to start with the most difficult and challenging aspects of a task first. Then, come crunch-time, the going is a lot less difficult than it would otherwise have been and quality is not compromised.