How Urgent is it?

Are you more effective at getting things done when there’s a sense of urgency? Does the day before a deadline provide the impetus that seemed to be lacking in the previous days?

If you wait until the last minute you may actually be more motivated to perform the task than if you’d started earlier on. In that final day or moments, your brain is suddenly kick-started. Urgency wakes up your brain.

On the other hand, when you have a task that you find really interesting, rather than just required, you’re way more likely to address it in a timely fashion. Interesting things also wake up your brain. Think “I get to” versus “I have to” and note the difference in how you feel.

If urgency is your habitual way of responding you might also find yourself feeling anxious, overwhelmed, and wiped out. Responding to emergencies and crises can be exhausting.

So, what can you do to prevent being in crisis mode? How do you take care of important things in a timely fashion? Preventing frequent crises means first learning from them. That way you can plan and prepare. “Yes but …,” you may be thinking. What about that lethargic brain? Here’s where mini-deadlines can save the day.

Break up your project or whatever it is that needs doing into small bits. Maybe it’s writing just one page each day for a presentation that’s two weeks away, or going through just one box a day to clear your storage space. Or it could be a time chunk, like scheduling just 30 minutes for a task each day. Give yourself a daily deadline.

Because a deadline doesn’t always count without accountability, have someone ask for status checks regularly.

The finished project is the sum of the bits, so think about how many bits you’ll need in all so you can determine your start date.

Need help? Here I am.

-Sydney Metrick