Okay so there’s this blog entry about productivity that really blew my mind. It’s the first time I’ve heard about the idea of being addicted to urgency.
And you know what?
I think that’s exactly who I am as a person.
An urgency junkie.
Why is urgency addictive? It’s not like you get a good high out of it. It’s not even positively recognizable by people.
BUT – there’s a specific certain feeling that urgency gives out. And that’s adrenaline.
Working on adrenaline has always been a subtle high for me. It helps boost sprinting tasks to completion. Makes this move faster. Gives more momentum.
In all, it gets things done.
However, there’s a downside to it. Being addicted to urgency means that you gobble up tasks. Whatever task that comes your way. You make sure you finish it and finish it quick.
That’s something that can make one person unproductive.
Doing things that are urgent doesn’t mean you’re doing things that are important.
It just means that you’re ‘doing’ things. Sometimes things that don’t really need doing.
So to keep urgency addiction at bay, here’s what I need to do:
Keep a to-do list in front of me listed down in order of importance.
Anything that pops out in the middle of doing these things are interruptions and have to be weighed in order of importance. An unimportant interruption has to be dropped, delegated or deferred.
Hope this makes me more productive moving forward.