put the cart before the horse

Verb

put the cart before the horse (third-person singular simple present puts the cart before the horse, present participle putting the cart before the horse, simple past and past participle put the cart before the horse)

1. (idiomatic) To put things in the wrong order or with the wrong priorities; to put something inconsequential as more important than something more essential.
   • The hour had struck; and with it, as always, appeared the man. So it has ever been in the history of the world; though we, with characteristic vanity, uniformly put the cart before the horse, and declare that it is the man that brings the hour.1898, Julian Hawthorne, chapter 1, in The History of the United States
   • To attempt to remove the armaments before removing these substantive conflicts of interest is to put the cart before the horse.1957 December 2, “Corruption of the Mind”, in TIME, archived from the original on 21 Nov 2007