Adult life is filled with obligations and responsibilities. And because our time and resources are always limited, a good part of being an adult is about setting priorities, both professional and personal.

Most of the Best Practices columns I edit each month are about aligning priorities. Too many contractors prioritize expanding their business (more jobs, more trucks, more employees) over creating systems that will let their business grow and succeed without them always driving the process.

We have two marketing columns this month—Keith Carpenter’s on 28 and Spencer Carney’s on 31. Carpenter writes about how that one-star review (usually the last thing anyone wants do deal with) needs to be a priority, not for the customer who wrote it, but for the next customer who reads it. Carney talks about how a company’s online presence needs to be prioritized; that reputation these days is more than a simple outgrowth of the good work you perform.

At one time an online reputation wasn’t on anybody’s list of priorities, but times change, and priorities shift. Back in the 1940s and ‘50s energy efficiency wasn’t a top priority for building owners—energy was cheap. Now, the lifetime energy performance of a building is a critical concern.

To cite three examples in this issue:

• Our cover case story features a Manhattan high-rise making innovative use of heat pump technology. The Lochinvar heat pump not only draws its air supply from the building’s general exhaust, it then uses a direct heat exchanger for the domestic hot water.
• Chicago is breaking ground on its first, all-electric, geothermal high-rise (read the story on pg. 3).  That the building has reached the construction phase is a triumph, not just for the design and technology involved, but for the public-private partnerships that worked to make it happen.
• In our hydronic case study on pg. 28, read how a home in Colorado combined a mini-split heat pump with a high-efficiency boiler to deliver comfort, efficiency, reliability, and more than 6,000 sq. ft. of radiant snowmelt.

Of course, sometimes, when it comes to system efficiencies, it can feel like we aren’t prioritizing so much as having our priorities set for us by state and federal legislation. This is typically accomplished through the carrot of tax rebates and the stick of minimum efficiency requirements.

And, for a wide range of issues, it can often feel like the government has its priorities out of whack. The top story on this issue’s cover is about the recent wave of cyberattacks on the nation’s water infrastructure. The Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2026 (which I wrote about last month) currently moving through Congress is offering $25 million a year to improve cybersecurity at water and wastewater treatment facilities.

Just a little back-of-the-envelope math has that work out to about $1,087 per facility which is, put simply, nowhere near enough to address what is a growing threat. We can only hope it won’t take a cyberattack-induced public health crisis for the government to get serious.

Since we’re on the topic of an unserious government, the national debt has just recently passed the $40 trillion mark. I’m not pointing fingers at any one administration or at any one party—in my opinion there is plenty of blame for everyone to share. 

But I feel it illustrates my original point: the need to set priorities. If you don’t say, “yes, this is important,” and “no, this can wait,” then everything just goes on the credit card. Which is fine… until the bill comes due.