The bombardment of information coming at us from multiple sources (e.g., emails, phone calls, texts, Tweets, Facebook’s reminders, blogs, and alerts), coupled with the demands of our careers, are overwhelming and distracting.

The sheer volume of information threatens our ability to think clearly and make wise decisions about what’s really important. If we react to these stimuli without clear judgment, we fail to accomplish the goals that matter most in our professional and personal lives.

Recent research shows, almost half of UK managers work an extra day of unpaid overtime per week. Work pressures and easy access to email through smartphone technology leave over 90% of managers working outside contracted hours, the study found.

So what do we do about it? Well, first let’s establish if you really have an urgency addiction challenge or not. If you do not have an urgency issue and generally focus on the important things, then odds are that you know someone who has some level of urgency addiction so this information can serve them.

The following questions are not meant to be a scientific survey but are intended to give you an idea if you are letting urgency addiction run your life. Answer these questions on 1 to 10 scale, where 1 is Strongly Disagree to 10 is Strongly Agree.

___ 1.I feel restless when I’m not working or disconnected from the net. ___ 2. I only do my best work when I am under pressure.

___ 3. When I am working on one project I am often preoccupied about another.

___ 4. I give up quality time with important individuals to handle something urgent.


___ 5. I rarely take a break and often work through lunch.


___ 6. I feel guilty when I am taking time off or relaxing.

___ 7. I am always in a time crunch, rushing from one urgency to another.


___ 8. The adrenaline rush from a new urgent crisis is more satisfying than the steady accomplishment of longer-term results.

____ Total

Obviously the higher the score the more you have an urgency mind-set If your total score is less than 40 you have a low urgency mind-set, 41- 60 strong urgency mind-set, 61+ the possibility of urgency addiction exists for you.

In real life it is impossible to have everything be in the calm, peaceful and important category. However the point to this process is for us each to be aware of where do we primarily operate from. Do we only thrive and operate from crisis to crisis or do we have a value driven life based on what’s important? The difference is if we are always and constantly putting out fires it’s pretty difficult to implement any fire prevention techniques or strategies.

From Urgent to Important

Are your controlling your life or is your life controlling you?

In the end, our life is our responsibility and a reflection of our own thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. So how do we shift from the urgent, to the important?

The challenge that we face with most important items which are non- urgent - is just that they are not urgent. They are activated with your input not the other way around where urgent items are demanding your attention now!

Now if the idea of improving your productivity makes you sigh a little, because on the one hand, you’d like to be more productive, but it only sounds like more work and don’t you have enough to do then absorb my next quote.

“Unless and until you make a conscious proactive commitment to the important, you are making an unconscious commitment to the unimportant."

We have a misguided idea of what real effective productivity is. It’s not doing more. In fact it means doing less.

Most of us try to do too much, and as a result, we give less than our best energy and time to those few things that really make the difference - the things that matter most. Highly effective and highly productive people consciously choose to invest their time and energy only where they can contribute most.

In the 7 Habitsof Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey talks about the difference between Production (P) and Production Capability (PC). He uses Aesop’s tale of the Golden Goose: 
A farmer finds a goose among his livestock that produces golden eggs. Every day it lays a pure golden egg and the farmer becomes extremely wealthy. After a while, the farmer gets greedy and impatient. He kills the goose to get all of the eggs at once. He has liquidated the asset or his production capability. The moral of the story is that without taking care of your production capability, production will suffer. I like the story because it deals with both short and long term (P) is short term (PC) is long term. Balance is Key to sustainable success 
True Sustainable Effectiveness is a function of both production in the short term balanced with the capacity to produce in the long term. Are you taking care of you? What are you doing to preserve, renew and enhance yourself?

That is why we exist to assist Organisations, Managers and individuals to Think, Believe, and Achieve sustainable results. If you feel that this issue needs addressing please contact us fora free consultation.