Your work life is busy. You're an Engineer, or perhaps an Engineering Manager. You've got lots to do in a day. More to do than time available, so you proritize your tasks.

What is the highest priority?

Is it helping your Team first? You don't want to block others and slow down the whole team. Is it Monitoring operations? You don't want crashes to go unnoticed. The current release? You don't want users to see bugs. Your Feature? You don't want it to be unsuccessful, you want to deliver as much as you can, with quality, so users love your app.

No. It's You.

You are your first priority. Always. If you put yourself first, everything else will fall into place. Let's see what I mean.

The Team

You can't help your team if you're drowning in unfinshed tasks. You can't help your team if your overwhelmed and stressed. If you go too far and end up burning out, then you're useless to your team and their mission. By the way, once you're burned out - it can take years to recover. That's some serious shit. Don't get there. It starts with putting yourself first.

If you do put yourself first, and have the strong self-respect to stay on top and manage yourself first, you'll set the right example for your team. They'll see how happier and easier your progress is. They'll wonder why and how, and you'll tell them. You'll help your whole team reach new heights together.

Quality

If you manage your time and don't overload yourself with the work of others, or the motive to impress, you'll give yourself more space to make each contribution you do a work of art. You want to be proud of each pull request, each project. Know you gave your all and did your best.

You do that, and your team will see. They'll follow. That's how you build a good culture.

The Product

Put your goals and yourself above the products goals. Put them above the companies goals. Better yet, forget the companies goals.

If you do right by you, if your self goals are right, then by meeting them, you'll also meet the companies goals.

If you make yourself more efficient, you've in turn made the company a little more efficient. If you deliver high quality features-as-works-of-art, you've made the product better. Which in turn makes the company better.

See how that works? It always starts with you.