Urgent! Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus Urgent!

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Zusammenfassung von Urgent!

Name: Urgent!
Rating: 4.3 (218 reviews)
Author: Dermot Crowley

Dermot Crowley

Strategies to Control Urgency, Reduce Stress and Increase Productivity

4.3 (218 Bewertungen)

23 Min.

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Urgent!
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What’s in it for me? Harness the power of urgency to reduce stress and increase productivity.

Urgent! It seems like everything is these days. In the modern, technology-driven workplace, feeling like we need to do it all now has become the norm – and it’s toxic. Unnecessary urgency is harmful in the long run, causing stress, burnout, and inefficiency.

But here’s the catch: not all urgency is bad. In some cases, it’s needed in order to get things done quickly or to drive progress. And in the same way too much urgency can lead to destructive outcomes for morale and productivity, too little urgency can result in lethargy and stagnation.

These blinks outline how to achieve a healthy middle ground. With savvy insights and actionable advice, they show how to leverage urgency to reach your goals, cut stress, and drive success at both personal and organizational levels.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

the difference between productive and unproductive urgency;
what urgency and ice cream have in common; and
why being less reactive and more responsive will boost your performance.

Senseless urgency hurts your well-being and productivity levels.

You’re a hard worker. You take pride in being an effective team member and doing your job well. And sometimes, you feel like a chicken running around without a head.

Yes, no, maybe so? Research published in the 2018 Journal of Applied Psychology reveals that 40 percent of Americans experience anxiety during their workday, and 72 percent say it affects their work and personal lives. Technology, without a doubt, plays a big part. The level at which we’re now all connected has resulted in a constant flow of information and a pace that’s impossible to keep up with.

To meet these urgent demands, we’re always busy, always panicked, always rushing to deliver – but never truly effective. This inevitably leads to burnout, and a blow to our physical and mental well-being. It also results in missed deadlines, rework, and attrition – all of which are costly to business.

The key message here is: Senseless urgency hurts your well-being and productivity levels.

But guess what? Many of those things marked “urgent” are just like the emperor and his new clothes – that is, they’re not what they seem. The Oxford English Dictionary defines urgency as “importance requiring swift action.” But in today’s workplace, “urgent” has become synonymous with anything slightly time-sensitive – whether or not it’s important. This unnecessary urgency creates stress and distraction, which is why it’s called unproductive urgency.

There are two types of unproductive urgency: fake and avoidable. Fake urgency can be self-inflicted, like reacting to a message you know wasn’t actually urgent. Research shows that even a brief interruption takes up to 20 minutes to recover from. Other times, it’s external; your colleague has sent a series of emails with subject lines escalating from “urgent” to “URGENT!” to “REALLY URGENT!” He knows if he’s loud enough, he’ll get what he wants.

Then there’s avoidable urgency. That’s when there’s real urgency – but only because something could’ve been avoided and wasn’t. This results from things like procrastination, disorganization, overcommitting, or poor time management. In both cases, say goodbye to your planned workday.

It’s time to call urgency’s bluff. To help mitigate your own potentially unproductive approach to urgency, the author proposes “The Urgency Playbook” – a set of ten principles and strategies that are sprinkled throughout these blinks.

First up: Don’t cry wolf. In other words, don’t act as though something’s urgent if it’s not. Save urgency for when it’s truly important, time-critical, and unavoidable. With email, for example, imagine there’s an urgency token system: you get five urgent requests per month. When you run out, that’s it – unless you want to get eaten by your colleagues!

Cultivating a proactive mindset can help control the kinds of urgency you accept and propagate.

Urgency is like ice cream: it’s easy to eat, addictive, and might ruin your appetite for dinner – in other words, the important things. And, like ice cream, urgency has lots of flavors. In addition to the destructive, unproductive kinds of urgency, there’s also reasonable, productive urgency – issues that couldn’t be planned for and require swift action.

Maybe you’ve just heard about a dream opportunity, and the application deadline is tomorrow. Or maybe your company’s undergoing a regulatory investigation, and you’ve received a request from higher-ups for a report. Productive urgency can be an amazing way to create traction and momentum – and it’s the only kind of urgency you should accept.

Implement a proactive system to manage your work effectively and boost productivity.

Consider your current productivity system. Is it forcing you to work reactively instead of proactively? Say you receive an email alert; it’s not urgent, but it’s insistent, so you compulsively react. This is first-minute reactivity.

Then there’s last-minute reactivity, like when you tell yourself you’ll deal with an email later – only to forget about it and then have to scramble with what’s now become urgent. In the process, you derail your priorities and subject others to unnecessary pressure. Sound familiar?

Urgency dials can be adjusted to manage competing priorities and deadlines.

Here’s some irony for you: The author was writing a book on urgency, and time had become a matter of, well, urgency. His due date had seemed reasonable back when he’d set it, but then he’d bought a house. Suddenly, he was dealing with a move and finding it difficult to write.

Instead of panicking, he emailed his publishing editor to check if there was any leeway. And there was! By simply asking the question, he negotiated urgency. This is an example of how a constraint – in this case, time – can be adjusted to lessen pressure and get things done. In addition to the time “dial,” quality, scope, budget, resources, and risk can also be used to moderate urgency.

To defend against external urgency, you can either Respond or Absorb.

Now you know how to be more personally proactive – but how do you deal with urgency running rampant in your team? Well, that’s one of the hallmarks of high-caliber leadership: knowing how to moderate urgency and leverage it to get the right stuff done at the right time. The goal is to keep your colleagues in an active, productive zone.

The Urgency Playbook’s sixth principle outlines an easy step you can take to start moderating urgency in the workplace: use appropriate tools for urgent requests. Email is used for everything, and, as such, is not an appropriate tool to convey urgency. Make sure you have an effective communication method for when something truly urgent comes up.

To drive internal urgency and build momentum, you need to Mobilize the troops.

The slope’s incline was very steep, and the author was struggling. If he lost his footing, he knew the drop was several hundred meters to the bottom.

He’d decided to climb Carrauntoohil, the highest mountain in Ireland, with his son. Only trouble was, the author had a deadly fear of heights. Their guide knew this. He’d kept a watchful eye on the author as they ascended, offering gentle encouragement.

Defusing urgency loops allows your team to refocus on the real priorities.

Paramedics never run or hurry. They’re taught to move purposefully and calmly, even in the most dire emergencies. This ensures two things: it gives the paramedics time to assess the situation, and it communicates leadership in what’s likely a charged environment.

Managers need to make sure they act in the same purposeful, calm way. You should strive to foster and drive a culture of proactivity instead of allowing others to get caught up in urgency loops – states of frantic activity in which everything seems more acute and critical than it is.

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Worum geht es in Urgent!?

Urgent! (2021) is your guide to getting the right things done at the right time. In our fast-paced world, it’s easy to fall into the urgency trap – and keeping up with the constant demands often feels impossible. But by learning to consciously replace reactive behaviors with proactive ones, you can reduce stress and do deeper, more effective work.

Wer Urgent! lesen sollte

Savvy leaders who want to increase team productivity
Frazzled workers craving less stress – and less time at the desk
Optimizers seeking efficiency hacks for a better work-life balance

Über den Autor

Dermot Crowley is a productivity guru who’s helped both individuals and organizations maximize their work potential for over 25 years. He’s an author, speaker, trainer, thought leader, and the founder of Adapt Productivity. His other books are Smart Work and Smart Teams.

Kategorien mit Urgent!

Produktivität Unternehmenskultur Management & Leadership

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