The Tyranny of the Urgent

Only a few days ago, I hired a new employee. In her review at the end of her first week, I related that my professional life has been governed by chaos. Like so many, for years I’ve worn my “busyness” as a badge of honor; feeling, at least on some level, important because of how much I have to do.

In the last eight months, I’ve taken on more professionally than I have in a long time. I sometimes travel for days at a time, leave home for work early when I am home, often come home late, and continue my work sometimes well into the night.

“Times and seasons,” I tell myself, and while there is certainly some truth to our need for gainful employment to provide for a family, I’ve started questioning my own narrative.

The term “tyranny of urgency” isn’t a new one. Charles E. Hummel is credited with coining the term in 1967. It refers to one or more situations where the constant pressure and demand for immediate attention (or action) undermines what is actually important with something masquerading as such. It’s a pressure that often becomes overwhelming, gets in the way of good decision-making, and hinders doing things in the right order. In one definition, it is described as a “state in which urgency dominates and dictates the pace and focus of one’s activities to the detriment of a more deliberate and strategic approach.”

There are times when what’s urgent is also what’s important: taking time away from a job to care for a sick family member, visiting someone who is in ill health or lonely instead of engaging in a sporting event, taking time to listen to a coworker who is struggling with a problem instead of getting that report done.

There are a few characteristics that define this tyranny of urgency:

Constant pressure. These are real and perceived situations that demand an immediate response.
Short-Term Focus. Often, urgent but less important things prioritize short-term solutions over long-term strategies, leading to reactive rather than proactive approaches to challenges.
Stress and Burnout. When urgent tasks interrupt focus on more important things, unnecessary stress develops. Prolonged exposure to that kind of stress often leads to burnout.

That’s not a comprehensive list but highlights three of the most common signs that something is urgent but not necessarily important.

I like Robert L. Millet’s phrasing of the ladder of accomplishment. He says, “What a tragedy it would be to spend our days climbing a ladder, only to realize as we reached the top that all the while the ladder had been leaning against the wrong wall!”

The wrong wall is the urgency we feel to get stuff done while neglecting what actually matters. Whether you are self-employed or work for someone else, there is a culture (particularly in the United States) where we place the importance of work ahead of all other interests. For example, individuals are not allowed to take the required time off to care for a family member who has fallen ill because work is too important to be left undone.

It’s a failure in the structure of business, that a person can’t take time off without things falling apart. It’s a failure of business leaders to devote the required resources to have contingencies in place to protect the business while allowing employees to take the time they need.

The preceding is also about business, but extends to all things that step into the role of the urgent tyrant. It can be a hobby that takes too much priority over family. It can be a friendship that requires too much maintenance and damages other relationships. It can be sports, community involvement, or religious involvement. Family, friends, people, and relationships all matter far more than the urgency of getting stuff done.

Combating the tyranny of urgency involves finding a balance (often daily) between addressing immediate needs and maintaining a long-term perspective. Going on one, grand family holiday a year might fall short of developing lasting relationships with family members who crave more consistent attention from a parent.

In the final balance, the accolades, accomplishments, and possessions we accumulate in life are of no value. The relationships we build are what’s most important, and those are often built through consistent, incremental efforts to show up for people how they need us to.