What is urgency, actually?
Is it desire?
Desire to have something as soon as possible?
Is it effort?
Incurring dramatic effort, in order to get it done faster?
Is it prioritisation?
Pulling all resources into that single undertaking first?
Is it stress?
A necessary, painful token validating one’s seriousness?
A chicken with a head cut off, a jittery cokehead, a maniac?
As I stress all the time:
there’s what something looks like,
and then there’s what it’s ACTUALLY LIKE
Of the aforementioned: urgency is closest to PRIORITISATION
That is the only NECESSARY consequence of urgency
Or even, you could say those are two sides of the same coin
PRIORITISATION is the ASSIGNMENT of higher PRIORITY, higher VALUE — to something — over something else
URGENCY is merely manifestation of that process — as it pertains to the TIME RESOURCE itself
TIME…resource
This part is imperative
No matter what you do — a day still has only 24 hours
A week only has 168 hours
It’s not rocket science — you put those hours into something, and that’s it
Just because you’re “rushing” more, “hurrying” more, doesn’t change this fundamental logic
When you’ve only $100 in your wallet, and solving your problem requires acquiring a number of things — the puzzle to solve is how to acquire the most of those things, AND solve your problem
When you’re a little short on money, it becomes a very difficult, potentially impossible puzzle
And when you’ve a ton of money — it’s a rather trivial puzzle
It’s the same with time:
URGENCY is when you have to solve a PUZZLE of how to ALLOCATE this PRECIOUS RESOURCE
And, of course, all those other things mentioned — are just byproducts
Unnecessary
Often harmful
They confuse us what urgency is
Just like we confuse hand-waving and stress with productivity
Or desire with intent
It only diverts our energy from what really matters = solving this puzzle of RESOURCE ALLOCATION
And, of course, if you FAIL to solve that puzzle — you fail period
You’re already ahead in recognising the puzzle as the crux of the issue, rather than some stupid mantra of “I don’t have time”, or “I MUST get it done by the end of the month”, etc
But if you still fail — you’re still a failure
And your urgency has been a failure
Because the whole point of urgency is appreciating the TIME as a KEY FACTOR
Some things are NOT urgent — you can develop them over your entire lifetime, literally
Other things absolutely have an EXPIRATION date
After which it’s entirely over, it’s utterly useless, gone
THIS is the essence of URGENCY
It’s recognising those things, and then being HONEST about them
That’s what we usually mean when we speak of URGENCY
We are differentiating our URGENT attitude from the delusional attitude of fools who NEGATE the clock running out, after which the opportunity will ACTUALLY be utterly LOST
And, of course, honesty necessitates development of an honest PLAN
Mere recognition of the urgency, of the expiration date — does not yet result in plan which will realise that undertaking in time
This is the puzzle we spoke of
AND if you CAN’T solve this puzzle — then honesty demands you to ADMIT it
And abandon that opportunity, that undertaking IMMEDIATELY
Because you recognise that it’s lost anyway
That you JUST WON’T MAKE IT ON TIME
And should therefore concentrate on something you actually may manage
THIS is the essence of urgency