Handling your Urgency

By Christina Suter on Nov 25, 2017 at 07:20 AM in Business Issues
Handling your Urgency

Are you driven by your urgency? Urgency becomes the thing that distracts you. An urgency that turns into the thing that becomes your way of interacting with the world can be devastating to your health, and the health of your business.

Urgency is detriment.

What happens to you, your business, and your income when you're stuck on urgent? I take my model of time management from David Allen. One of the things Allen emphasizes is knowing and delegating things that are urgent, versus things that are important. IF you're stuck on urgent, you forget what's important. If it's urgent and important, do it, but if it's not urgent or important, get rid of it. 

How does work get done when you're working in the state of urgency? When you're stuck on urgent you're afraid. Your adrenals will start to break down your system, your blood pressure rises, and your body pays the price. Your health pays the price and your mind pays the price because it feels like it's chasing its tail. When I'm urgent, I miss the details because I can't slow down and miss the details.

The employees in your business pay the price when you run on urgency because anxiety is transferred. The culture of your business environment becomes one of anxiety and overwhelm. Employees will lose respect for you because you always seem out of control instead of being a leader who knows how to steer the ship. The job of your employees is to take care of a specific part of your business so you don't feel overwhelmed. Don't make their job one of making you not feel overwhelmed. If your employees are telling you they're overwhelmed or asking you to give them a list of to-do's they need you to clarify the priorities. Before long you may have employees who begin to run your business because they've lost faith in you as a leader.

When you function in urgency you work in your business more than you work on your business and you miss trends in your industry. Your businesses' long-term success may be at risk because you haven't handled your urgency and miss out on important business shifts within your industry. 

The solution

I've just gotten to the point where I began to stop running on overwhelm.  Being on urgent for me was taking a toll on me and my employees and I needed to stop behaving badly. If you're like me and think your business will fail if you don't do everything, it's time to restructure your business. 

You live in a state of distrust of yourself when you constantly run around in a state of urgency and overwhelm. 

Restructure your day, set up blocks of undisturbed time. Make a two-hour time slot of time when you aren't available and then an hour block where you can be interrupted or when you check in with employees and clients. Repeat that throughout your day and your month including time for team meetings. Do a workflow chart on your business and show how the workflow goes from the first engagement with the client to the follow-up customer service. Delegate pieces of that chart out so you don't become overwhelmed or fall into a state of urgency. Hire out people to handle parts of your business and keep control of your p&l, meeting with clients directly.

Restructure your employees. Create job descriptions after you delegate so each person knows their expectations and where their work flows before and after them. Your employees will disrupt your flow less when they know their job and when you're available to discuss their questions or concerns. Have a shared to-do list so that during employee meetings they know what their job is and so during meetings together you two can track their progress.

Don't allow urgency to drive you or your business into the ground. Get out ahead of it now, restructure your day and your employees so together you can collectively excel.