Don't confuse motion with progress.

I had lunch with a friend the other day and we were sharing with each other the new endeavors we were working on. After describing his project, the different ideas he was thinking through and the next step he was planning on taking he made this self reflective comment: I try to never confuse motion with progress so I want to be sure my next step will be one that will move me forward.

This is great advice. How often we get busy responding to the onslaught of requests we receive and consumed by the tyranny of the urgent only to realize at the end of the day we have accomplished very little other than moving a lot of paper around (or in today's world answering a lot of emails, text messages, etc...). We should take a hard look at our to-do lists to make sure our next step is going to move our cause forward and not just make us look busy.