Tyranny of the Urgent

As we approach the end of the year and I prepare my plans for 2012, I am reflecting about what worked, areas I need improvement and lessons learned. One of the areas that I want to share with you based on the countless meetings, conversations with family, friends and business partners is the management of time. Specially this time of the year, where we should be filled with Joy; many seem stressed and worried.

Many people seem to be "running out of time" and wishing for a 30-hour day. I am sure that if we had an extra six hours every day that would solve our problems; or would we end up as frustrated as we are now with our 24-hour days? Is the problem that God did not provide for us enough time for us to complete our tasks or is the root of the problem our choices of priorities? In 2004, Ipsos (a global marketing research firm) announced that almost everybody agrees with the statement "There is never enough time in the day to get done what I want to get done". Americans were among the most likely to agree with this statement with 64% of us agreeing with it.

Back in the 60s, Charles Hummel published a short booklet that became a quick hit in the business community called Tyranny of the Urgent.  In this classic, Hummel argues that there is a constant tension between what is important and what is urgent. He goes further to say that in most cases the urgent wins. We live in a world where the urgent tasks collide with the important tasks. The urgent tasks are constantly screaming for attention and demanding to be addressed now! Whereas the important tasks many times does not have to be done right now, what if you missed dinner with your wife tonight?, what if you missed your daughter's ballet recital?, what if you missed your son's basketball game? There is always tomorrow, next recital and next game.

The momentary appeal of a "business opportunity" screaming at you and wanting to pull you away from home and your important tasks, seems irresistible. However, when put under the light their deceptive prominence fades. Then you realize that it is not that urgent, then with a sense of loss and frustration we realize that time is not forgiving and we look at the important tasks that we pushed away to attend the urgent. That is when it hits you that you are a slave to the tyranny of the urgent.


If we stop to evaluate  the situation, we will realize that the root of the problem goes much deeper than shortness of time and that the real problem is how we establish priorities. In other words, many times we allow the "urgent", though less important, to be elevated in our list of priorities, and therefore the important is put on the back burner. We see this happening at work and home all of the time,  we focus on the urgent things in front of us, and at the end of the day, the things we really care about — the important — were barely looked at. We leave undone the things that we have to complete and attend and complete the tasks that we did not have to.

Hummel in 1967 identified the telephone as among the "worst offenders" against our peace. That was before we decided to carry the offending equipment with us everywhere (and I mean everywhere). As Hummel stated back in 1967 it is true today, the issue is not that we have a shortage of time, the real problem is our priorities. The greatest danger to our peace is letting the urgent things crowd out the important ones.

God invented time to keep everything from happening at once. Looking ahead to 2012, do not expect to have time to do everything you want to do. However, resolve that you won't let the urgent get the upper hand on the important events in your life.