Hardly anything is urgent.
I’ve gone through decades of my life treating everything that landed on my to do list as an urgent task, and apart from wearing me out it had little effect on my productivity levels.
A couple of times, this relentless pace pushed me so deep into burnout that I was physically and mentally unable to do anything for a week or more. But when I finally looked back at that backlog of “urgent” tasks, I realized something important: some I could pick right back up without skipping a beat, and others I could let float away entirely with zero repercussions.
Don’t wait for the burnout to teach you this lesson.
If you’re constantly stressed about all the urgent things you need to get done right now. it’s time to rethink what urgent means.
The eisenhower Matrix
Reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People introduced me to the Eisenhower Matrix. It’s a simple mental model in my productivity arsenal that I turn to whenever I need to triage a new task. It forces you to divide your plate into four clear categories:
Urgent & Important (Do it): This shoots straight to the top of the list. It’s picking up the kids from school, or delivering a critical project. It’s non-negotiable and has to happen - but because the stakes are real, you rarely need to manufacture the motivation to do it.
Not Urgent & Important (Schedule it): This is what planning was made for. These are the things that need a dedicated time block later in the week. It’s taking a course, working on your systems, or building out your second brain.
Urgent & Not Important (Delegate or Automate): These things need to get done on time, but not necessarily by you. This is exactly why delegation and software automations exist.
Not Urgent & Not Important (Drop it): Doomscrolling, endlessly researching minor replacements for tools you already use, busywork. Let it go.
Every time you want add something to your proverbial list, sit down and ask yourself what category the thing falls under. Instead of treating everything as urgent, take action depending on what type of thing it is and leave yourself room to breathe.
The “Might as well” trap
Antoher trap I often fell into was doing things on the spot because “I might as well...”. Stack a few of these up, and there goes your day.
It seems harmless: answer that email, it won’t take long. Oh no, but I hit a limit on that app I’m using, let’s look into the subscription plans. Eh, too expensive, let’s look at an altern... aand 2 hours have gone by.
Instead of getting detoured by side quests, add the task on your list for a later time. It might be important, but not urgent.
Let it go
If you delegate, a lot of things will inevitably come back to you - for approval, for review, or just in case.
When I started to delegate my work, I thought it was my job to be there for everyone, only to realize I was doing a few jobs at once by being as available.
So - assholish as this behavior seemed at the time - I forced myself to wait until getting back to certain requests. Not “the roof is on fire“ requests, but “hey, what color was the roof again?“ ones.
And these started to work themselves out as if by magic.
Because these things weren’t important, nor were they urgent.
Figure out what’s actually urgent
Are you procrastinating here because you’re overwhelmed by work?
If you are, take a moment and look at your list. Let go of everything unimportant and not urgent. Share the load of everything that’s important and not urgent.
But figure out what urgent means. And answer that for everything coming your way.
If you’re honest, you’ll see how little actually is urgent.