In A Hurry

When did everything become urgent? Early in my career, really important papers were delivered by messenger. We agents didn’t abuse the privilege; messengers were expensive so we knew that only really important documents, generally limited to contracts and Board packages, traveled that way. And I delivered a fair number of items myself – I was the messenger. Other issues were worked out on the phone, and we used the mail a lot more. We all understood that communication sometimes took a little time. Contracts did not take any longer to get signed then than they do now; attorneys marked them up and sent them back and forth and sometimes, to accelerate the process, they actually TALKED to each other!

The arrival of the fax machine changed all that. Suddenly documents could be transmitted in seconds. And equally suddenly, turning those documents around in an hour became important. Trivia gained in importance because IT HAD BEEN FAXED! A new level of urgency was added to our business (and all businesses.) Senders would call after two hours to make sure you had received the document; if you had, then why had they not heard back from you? I remember the sound of the fax machine right outside my office; after a month or two, it never stopped.

I am no fan of business books, but I do love Stephen Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” And my favorite lesson in the book relates to making a distinction between Urgent tasks and Important ones. Over the years I have worked out my own way of addressing pressures on my time using the Covey formula: I attend immediately to tasks which are both urgent and important, and realistically I probably never get around to the issues which are neither urgent nor important. My challenge is always how I divide my time between those tasks which are not urgent but are important, and those which display as urgent but are not actually important:CaptureCommunication technology has rendered this task harder than ever before.

First the fax machine, then e-mail, then the pdf: these accelerated communication tools have made everything urgent. There is no more 24 hour turnaround time; everyone wants it now, or in an hour, two at the most. Not only does this increase stress, it also makes it harder to make good decisions when there is always pressure to respond. I could not make 500 phone calls in a day during the 1980s. Realistically twenty or thirty was a lot. But today I get close to 500 e-mails a day, and I am expected to respond promptly to them all. No wonder we all spend our days missing the life which goes on around us as we look at our devices.

I am doing everything I can to take back control of my time. First, I try to take one week-end day each week as a device holiday. While I do compulsively answer texts and e-mails, frequently bumping into other pedestrians as I walk around not looking where I am going, I don’t read documents on my phone. I wait till I am in front of a computer where I can download and read whatever I have received and really think about it. Sometimes I even need to print things out to fully assimilate them and mark them up. I tend to push back against demands that paperwork be turned around in an afternoon, especially anything which I believe falls into the urgent but not important category. And I always complete one task before beginning another, regardless of phone calls (which I don’t answer if I am already occupied), or colleagues lurking at my office door, or e-mails arriving with attachments which want my immediate attention.

Technology facilitates much of what I do every day at the office. But it is the cart, not the horse. The fact that things CAN be done faster doesn’t always mean that they SHOULD be done faster. Sometimes our best choice is simply to slow down and take the time to complete our tasks at our own pace. Not only is it more effective, but it restores a modicum of sanity to our schedules and our lives. Most things, as Mr. Covey realized many years ago, just aren’t that urgent.

 

 

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