Stephen Covey in his amazing book “7 habits of highly successful people” found that being able to prioritize tasks in order of importance was a very common trait in the lives of successful people. When you are busy it is easy to get ADD and become distracted from all you have to do. I am being challenged by this in the lead up to the Cannes film festival. So much to do, so little time, we can’t do everything… so all we can do is the most important thing first.

The “most important thing” is in my opinion an ever changing and dynamic thing, that moves with time. We need to be able to constantly re-evaluate, to move quickly and efficiently and make the most out of our days.

The most important thing should always be assessed in conjunction with your core values. For example: one of my core values that I hold close is that people are far more important than projects… so if a crisis calls to a person around me while we are filming a scene, the first thing will no longer be the scene but will become that person instead.