The Tyranny of the Urgent

Life is full of really important, urgent stuff. Replying to emails, paying bills, maintaining basic levels of hygiene, ensuring you don’t starve. Not to mention all the shows you have to watch (there are so many!) In fact, there is so much stuff that requires our attention – often urgently – that most of us spend our life doing that, instead of what is truly important.

Like many good theories, this is not my own – I nicked it from a chap called Charles Hummel who wrote in an article back in 1967, ‘We live in constant tension between the urgent and the important.  The problem is that the important task rarely must be done today or even this week.‘

Exacto!

Full disclosure. I started this blog because I wanted to write a book.

But, in this day and age, agents and publishers will barely even look up from their latte unless you have a ‘platform’.

So, three years ago I started this blog.

Every week, with the urgency of the Friday deadline looming, I made sure to read/research and write. Then I would upload, share and promote. And – f*ck me- before I knew it, between my ‘actual’ work, a few breadcrumbs of a social life, Season 5 of ‘The Thin Blue Line’ and trying to keep my kids alive, Friday was just up ahead waiting for the next installment.

The ‘important’ was slowly being buried beneath the ‘urgent’.

And, yes. It’s hard, because life (and Season 5) gets in the way. But, this week I urge you to intentionally ask yourself:

‘Is this really urgent?’ ‘What can I do today to get one step closer to what is actually important?’ And that might not be something big (and scary) like a book or a marathon (why?) It might just be fixing your marriage or taking your Mum out to dinner. It is definitely not catching up on emails or descaling the kettle.

In that spirit, I have been skipping my weekly blog commitments and have been (trying to) finishing my book proposal. It’s nearly done – thank you for your patience.

This GET HAPPIER post is brought to you by someone who is blatantly using it as a procrastination tool.