The Main Thing and Nertz

The other night, I played Nertz with three family members. If you’ve never played, Nertz is this high-speed, multiplayer card game where everyone’s playing their own solitaire-style hand at the same time. It’s fast, fun, a little chaotic.

I started out strong, placing second in the first round. Not bad for a rookie, right? I was feeling pretty good about myself, considering I had only just learned the rules.

In Nertz, there’s a shared middle where players can toss their cards to score points. It’s tempting, because for every card you get into the middle, you earn one point. But there’s a catch. Each player has a personal stack of thirteen cards—called the “Nertz pile” or “queue.” The main objective is to clear this pile as quickly as possible. The first to clear their pile gets an additional 10 points! If you’re not first to clear your queue? You lose two points for every card left in your queue at the end of the round.

Well, I got so focused on the middle, trying to rack up those middle points, that I neglected my own pile. When the round ended, I had a bunch of cards left in my queue. Those negative points added up fast, and my second-place lead vanished.

Later, I asked my son-in-law Jay, who was absolutely crushing it, how he was doing so well. His answer was simple. “I focus on getting rid of my queue,” he said.

Ah.

It brought to mind a familiar business principle. There’s a quote, often attributed to Stephen Covey, that goes:
“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

It’s easy to get distracted by the flashy middle, the points, the opportunities. But if you’re not tending to your own “main thing”—your core priorities—you’ll end up losing.

Jay’s approach reminded me that success isn’t about showing off in the middle; it’s about taking care of your foundation first. In Nertz, that means clearing your queue. In life, that might mean focusing on your health, your family, your faith, your business fundamentals—whatever your “main thing” is.

What’s your main thing? Are you keeping it the main thing? Or are you chasing points while your queue—your true priorities—sits stagnant?

You can score big points and mind your queue. But you must keep your focus. Clear the pile first. Mind your own hand before you get too fancy elsewhere. Neglecting the main thing can cost us far more than we think.