Urgentia
Chapter 21 from “The ‘Keep It Simple’ Book” by Simon Tyler
Urgentia is one of my favourite chapters to talk about and bring to life for clients at conferences and team events however, when I decided to share this written chapter with you, I noticed how my use of language and writing have developed over the last ten years and so publicly apologise for my under-developed style in this early working!
Despite that, the message in the chapter still resonates with me strongly and is one I have used often in coaching and speaking events over the years since it was written. It was a concept developed in the earlier times of social media, digital life and the 24-hour news streams that are even more prevalent today. In revisiting the written concept, I would develop this even further today as “urgentia” is still something I witness with many individuals and organisations.
I refer in the chapter to a 2x2 box – a favourite of mine in its many uses! It’s a simple framework within which we can analyse impacts and is deigned like a window pane, for those of you who don’t know what I am talking about!
I urge you to reflect on Urgentia, to pause and bring a new awareness to priorities, to goals, to strategic thinking. When Urgentia is present, so much importance gets lost and “busyness” prevails – where could you have the most impact? Make the most difference? Be the biggest positive change?
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James (1842-1910)
When evaluating your tasks, intentions, goals and to-do lists, etc… the Eisenhower Method is a trusted and well-used maxim that’s applied in almost every time-management lesson or programme. I’m sure you know it and can recite the points it seeks to make. It is simply obvious, isn’t it?
I’ll remind you:
Identify all the tasks, commitments and actions in which you are involved and categorize them into the four boxes.
Assess the degree to which they are urgent (looming deadline or immediate requirement to be completed) and the degree to which they are important (developing and evolving yourself and the environment around you, solving bigger challenges, leading to your goals or greater success).
The best practice principle is to:
Work on the Urgent and Important first (Box B).
Work on the Not Urgent but Important box second (Box D).
Handle the Urgent, Unimportant quadrant in new ways (Box A).
Avoid Box C, neither Urgent nor Important.
This 2x2 method comes into most of my coaching conversations. Amid today’s constant volume of requests, emails, messages, notifications, meetings, projects, new possibilities, distractions, games, texts and social networking, people can unknowingly drift into a state of “Urgentia”.
Urgentia is my word to describe a loss of awareness of actual important thinking and actions. Instead, everything that grabs your focus is laced with unspecified urgency.
Doubt and fear of failure have led to many people forcing the priority of tasks in business situations by artificially upping the urgency. I notice this immediately in commercial environments – the almost intangible controlled chaos is in a way, almost physically palpable.
Extreme Urgentia drives you to seek some sort of relief from a mixed dose of unimportant distractions. Things that aren’t important simply aren’t important. Ideally you shouldn’t spend excessive time (and it’s perhaps worth defining specifically what “excessive” might be for you) on them. Your evolved self should eliminate them entirely.
In today’s busy environment, you may be told by many that everything is now in Box B (Urgent and Important). Culturally, it may even have become accepted as a truth in your workplace. Most of the time this is not actually true. What may have happened – without you or those around you being consciously aware of it- is that you have become addicted to the buzz of the Urgent. You are suffering from Urgentia.
Your many electronic devices are, by their nature, urgent. These include photos, especially mobiles, texts (even more so), email, messages, alerts and so on. Add to this the everyday hyped urgency of our media (Tv, radio, web and printed press) and advertisements that scream for your attention and action NOW. Is it an y wonder that we have ended up with an environment in which urgency rules? These are almost all in toxic Box A (the scale of urgency masks the fact that they may be absolutely unimportant).
Today you have more choices available to you than ever before – you are capable of taking empowered self-development steps in any moment you choose. Changing your business and personal life dramatically is a real and attainable option. But so often you don’t. These types of action are always important and not urgent (precious Box D). They don’t shout and scream; they require you to be measured, considered, conscious and deliberate. Time spent here always pays back, but it is lost to the “red-alert” urgency lists.
Box D enjoys only fleeting moments of attention as your diary fills (or gets filled) with the urgent stuff. And without noticing, you are caught idling in Box C, convincing yourself that whatever you are doing is important, when really it isn’t. It’s simply not urgent and you have been enjoying the non-urgency of it. The same relaxed option awaits you in the important Box D as soon as you focus on it and lay into the tasks.
Urgentia is not big or clever, even though it feels like it when we are caught up in it. Bizarrely, when people are in a state of Urgentia, they appear more important than those working on the truly important things! Urgentia leads to missed goals, slipped deadlines, frantic over-productivity (of possibly irrelevant outputs), excessive stress and anxiety… and the feeling of no progress despite what seems to be immense effort.
So, what is a simple way to cure Urgentia?
Start an audit this week of where you have spent your time. Broadly mark against each period or task where it fell in the diagram, in your 2x2.
Ask yourself the question, “Was this task truly important to me, my goals and aspirations?” Begin again, deliberately. Handle the urgent and do the important. Book time, reserve the space and take whatever action moves you forward in the direction of your goals.
Be deliberate and purposeful carving out time and space to focus on an important not “urgent item”. It will meet resistance but see it through.
While you are in your audit/noticing phase, keep an eye on how urgency is used around you. “Buy now before it’s too late”, “Today only”, “Last few remaining” – feel the adrenaline spike these provide in you. Notice it and breathe through it. Choose calm!
Get your copy of The ‘Keep It Simple Book here.