But busy work is not sustainable. Urgency is a trap of modern life.
We are constantly stimulated by a steady stream of work, news and social updates, which leaves us feeling out of touch with our consciousness.
Constant stimulation from our phones is causing more harm than good.
Our apps are taking advantage of our hard-wired needs for security and social interaction and researchers are starting to see how terrible this is for us,” writes Hilary Brueck of Business Insider.
The sad truth is, the more urgent work time we allow ourselves, the more stressful we become. In the end, we become burnout and overwhelmed.
To-do lists are increasingly becoming infinite.
That sense of urgency you feel daily is a productivity trap: a cycle that feeds on your natural vulnerabilities.
Do you ever feel like you’re spinning your wheels at work? You’re working hard, but you feel like you are not making enough progress.
Maybe you’ve even wondered if there’s a better way to stay productive.
The answer might not seem that far-fetched.
Even with our best intentions, it can be easy to fall into the “productivity trap.” We can become so used to a certain routine that we don’t recognize when we’re not doing anything productive anymore.
The sense of urgency is the enemy
“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent,” Dwight D. Eisenhower said.
The more you feel like you have to move things along, the more you’ll struggle with getting anything done.
There are a whole host of productivity-focused tips, tricks, and strategies to help you get things done and stay on top of your tasks when it comes to getting things done working.
But is all this effort essential?
“When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets,” Friedrich Nietzsche once said.
Everyone at some point has probably felt a sense of urgency to get things done, and let’s face it; it can be a pretty convincing feeling.
But is the sense of urgency really the way forward?
In other words, is the constant feeling of having to get things done a productive force that leads to better work or just a source of stress?
In the age of constant distraction and short attention spans, it’s no surprise that people struggle to stay focused on their work.
“Don’t confuse activity with productivity. Many people are simply busy being busy,” Robin Sharma once observed.
The natural state of the human brain is relaxed and slow. We do our best work when we are in a flow and deep state.
We work better when we choose one task at a time. We make real progress when we are fully rested. We do more when we work less.
The brain makes better connections when it’s calm and not overwhelmed.
The critical question is; how do we overcome the sense of urgency? How do we slow down and take time to do more great work?
How do we stay focused on our goals?
There’s no short-term fix — the only way is to defend and protect your schedule and time aggressively.
Defend your time like your mental health depends on it because it does.
To work better, you have to deliberately fight complex algorithms that learn our click behaviours.
You have to work on purpose; be proactive about your choices instead of reacting to everything that requires your immediate attention.
If you don’t respond to your notifications in real-time, you are being insensitive or self-seeking.
You are being deliberate about how you spend your time.
“Productivity is the deliberate, strategic investment of your time, talent, intelligence, energy, resources, and opportunities in a manner calculated to move you measurably closer to meaningful goals,” explains Dan S. Kennedy.
Staying on top of things can be challenging when you have a lot to do and a limited amount of time, but you will take back control with time and a commitment to change how you work.
How you spend your attention is how you spend your time. Don’t sacrifice quality time for urgent but unimportant tasks. And remember what David Allen once said, “You can do anything, but not everything.”
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This post was previously published on Better Humans.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
 White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism |
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 The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer |
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