Mistaking the urgent for the important.

Soldiers, it's no news to you that you don't seem to ever have enough time to complete a PM job.

Often, you're rolling through the middle of a PM job and heading toward the finish line when you're yanked away for something "more important." And nine out of 10 times that more important job isn't more important at all.

Someone in your chain of command has mistaken urgent for important. Urgency can be attached to any job and is often an artificial application. But important jobs are as real as the deaths caused by leaking brake lines and under inflated tires.

PM is always an important job. A soldier's life depends on the reliability of his or her equipment and that reliability depends on good PM. A PM job may lack the urgency of getting the grass mowed or the rocks painted. But unmowed grass or unpainted rocks have never made the siren of an ambulance howl as it makes its way to an accident caused by equipment failure.

NCOs, when you put a soldier on a PM job, let him or her stay with that job until it's finished. Take a stand against the "urgent" that isn't urgent at all.