Timothy Byler, DRE
Many years ago, there was a phrase that made its way to the forefront of life in our office: “The Tyranny of the Urgent”. It defines those things that occur at the most inopportune moment, necessary items that magically or tragically appear on your agenda that scream with urgency and demand your immediate attention. These things are notorious for distracting you from your plans. They hijack your time and your focus and do so at the expense of fulfilling purpose. Left unchecked, they can cost you a lot of momentum.
Sometimes they are unavoidable. An emergency arises and you have to drop everything and tend to the matter at hand. Such emergencies can extend into longer more involved circumstances that can force you to add an entirely new layer of responsibility to your already busy life. The tyranny of the urgent is one of the biggest enemies of true productivity. It is a seductive enemy because the demand that it places upon you requires a productivity of its own. The tyranny of the urgent always comes in the form of a problem to be solved - a problem that requires your immediate and undivided attention. It places demands on your ability to think and reason, your gift for inventing solutions, and your skill in leading those around you to bring that solution into fruition. When you are finished, you stop and take a deep breath. You look at those who are involved and say, “Great job everybody. We did it!” And, you walk away, stopping at your phone booth long enough to hang up your tights and your cape. You feel really proud of your prowess in employing your leadership skills with catlike reflexes!
Then you come home and realize everything that you haven’t gotten accomplished. You feel an overwhelming sense of burden because of the unfinished responsibilities that are yours. Your frustration rises as you consider that there “simply aren’t enough hours on the day” and, “There is too much on my plate”. The words of Star Trek’s infamous Dr. McCoy (Bones) begin to ring in your brain: “I’m a doctor! I’m not a magician.” (You can substitute any appropriate skill set over the word ‘magician’. Throughout the series, Bones did.)
Three of the most essential ingredients to true productivity are focus, perspective, and time management. Focus is vital because distractions are all around you. As my uncle and golfing coach would often remind me, “You have to keep your eye on the ball. If you look up, you miss! Even if you manage to connect with the ball, you’ll miss the fairway and drive it into the rough.” You have to maintain real focus on what you are doing if you want to get it done properly. But equally dangerous to a lack of focus is being so focused on what is immediately in front of you that you do not see the entire picture. THAT is the strategy most used by the tyranny of the urgent! When your intense focus is trained on what is immediate, you lose sight of the bigger picture. That can create a lot of damage.
A friend of ours was teaching her daughter how to drive. The daughter kept having trouble staying centered in her lane. Her mother remedied this by pointing out that if she glanced at the hood ornament on the car, the stripe on the right side of the road would align with the hood ornament when she was in the center of the road. It worked. The daughter drove, watching the hood ornament and stayed in the center of her lane - and rear ended a car in front her that was stopped to make a left turn! Her focus in addressing an immediate problem distracted her from the much greater responsibility - with somewhat disastrous results. True focus requires seeing the entire picture. Driving and flight instructors call it situational awareness. When the urgent strikes, remember to remain aware of all that is around you.
Focus on the entire picture.
That brings us to perspective. As demonstrated, you can be intently focused but of your perspective is off, that focus can work against you. Consider this: Have you ever been in an argument where half way through your defense you realize you were wrong? It is amazing that when this occurs, people don’t quit arguing. They continue to fight because no one likes to lose! Such arguments occur when you have specific focus without proper perspective. You fight to win the battle without even considering that you are losing the war!
A single mother approached me one day and asked me to apply a little fatherly influence on her teen aged son. She had come home from work to discover that he had altered his hairstyle. It was now green. She was livid and a serious argument had ensued. Attempting to bring her to a broader perspective I asked her, “What is the real problem?” Her reply was simple. “I don’t LIKE it! I’m the mom. My house. My rules!” That’s fair, I thought - and reasonable. But then I asked her, “How are his grades?” “Is he keeping up with his responsibilities around the house?” “Is he hanging out with negative influencers?” “Is he troubled with substance abuse?” All of the answers to these questions presented a positive picture. This was a good kid - a great kid - who just happened to have green hair. He was also wrestling with having an absent father and searching for his own value and identity. I asked him about his hair. It turns out that he was a gamer and the hero in his favorite video game also had green hair. When this kid was facing a struggle, he would consider how his hero would fight to be victorious. The green hair was his own reminder that
he would not fail, but fight to succeed.
I asked his mother to consider whether she was fighting a battle of principle or a battle of preference. The principle of “I am the mom” was very real but she needed to look “larger”. This kid was living a very principled life - nurtured by his mother’s influence. Regarding just the hair, was there a principle involved or just a preference? Her words came back to her. “I don’t like it.” Preference! She had taught this kid the survival skill of finding positive things to inspire him to fight the battles. She focused on hair dye rather than the personal victory it was representing. The tyranny of the urgent issue was driving her to exchange her positive influence on principles for a win on a battle of preference that was not really worth it. Realizing it, she let it go. (Three months later, he met a girl. The green hair went away!) Interestingly, the mom gave up a day of work trying to solve the issue. Her argument took over the time needed to prepare dinner and she had to take the children out to eat that evening. Money wise, that was a $100 argument!
Correct focus and proper perspective make you aware of the battles that NEED fighting so that you do not expend energy on battles that are not yours to fight. Someone else’s emergency is not necessarily your emergency. As one of my professors used to say, “Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” Often, the tyranny of the urgent is something that has fallen off of someone else’s plate and landed on your own. Focus and perspective help determine if that urgency really belongs to you. Sometimes it does and
when that happens, time management is key.
Most people plan their schedules completely - dividing hours, days, and weeks to accomplish their desired goals - from work to rest. They do not schedule time for the “urgent” because they don’t see it coming. It may NOT come. If you do not schedule a window to handle the unexpected, you not only have to reinvest time in tending the urgent, you have to spend time strategizing and rebuilding your schedule it accommodate it. That doubles the time that the urgent steals! If you plan some time for contingencies, you can better manage things when the urgent arises.
The urgent will show up in your life. You do not have to bend to its tyranny! If you stay properly focused, keep a broad perspective, and manage your time well, you can deal with the urgencies without derailing your true productivity.
©️2022 Timothy Byler - All Rights Reserved
