29. Creating Urgency Without Rush

I hate being in a rush. Just this morning I forced myself into rushing out the door to get to my first appointment on time. By on time, I mean early, and we’ve talked about that before, but the feeling of being rushed is one that I absolutely despise. This being the case, I’m going to change my morning routine starting tomorrow. It’s too tight, so I’ve got to adjust.

What I’m going to do is be better prepared tonight so that tomorrow morning is easier. I’m also going to reprioritize what I do as soon as I wake up. I’ll spare you the boring details, but tomorrow I plan on having a leisurely walk out to the car rather than a rushed one and I don’t plan on setting the alarm any earlier.

This is about creating urgency for how I want my days to look.

Here’s the first definition of urgency when I asked Google for one:

Here’s where people go wrong. They’ll try to act with urgency to get out the door on time by rushing around and moving faster. They’ll try to get up earlier, and they’ll inevitably end up in a rush again because it sucks to try to just push yourself to do something differently without assurance that anything will be different. See “Coffee With Cody” issue #19 for a detailed discussion on why you can’t just push yourself to sustainably do something.

It needs to be by design. That definition of urgency says that there’s something that needs immediate action or attention, but it doesn’t say the action or attention needs to be a literal immediate physical change.

Here’s what urgency means to me.