What’s not urgent?
What’s not urgent?
My wife and I love to read. She has a PhD in Literature and a Master's in Library Science. I’ve got a Master's in literature, and I write books. So yeah, reading is one of our things.
A predictable outcome is that we have books everywhere in our apartment.
Everywhere.
Our laundry room is filled with just my books connected to Change Signal. 🫣
I get to mull over systems thinking while waiting for the dryer to finish.
When we do one of our regular book prunings, we’ve got a very particular approach.
We don’t just run our fingers along the shelves and remove a book or two.
We remove them all, pile them up, and then decide which ones we’re going to put back.
It’s out, unless it’s definitely in.
And trust me, we negotiate hard on which ones get to stay and which ones have to go.
Beyond books
It’s a strategy that can work for more than just bibliophilia.
I find when I run a project, typically all the strategies, sub-projects, and tasks all end up on the shelves marked “very urgent” or “urgent” or “oh yeah … also urgent.”
If that sounds strangely familiar, then you’ll know that not only do you have your focus pulled this way and that, but there’s always an ominous, low-level rumble of anxiety as the background soundtrack.
Like the Jaws theme, but more relentless.
In the past, I’ve just tried to prune the list back, or (for tasks especially) just kicked some of them further down the track. “See you in two weeks, Task I Don’t Want to Do!”
This month, I’ve done it differently.
I printed out my project and task lists … and deleted the electronic version. (Gulp!)
And now I’m (partway) to selectively putting back the ones that actually deserve to be on that metaphorical bookshelf labelled “genuinely important and urgent.”
You? My guess is that when you review your obligations, for a change project or just in general, there are all sorts that have snuck in as “urgent,” almost to the extent that “urgent” has ceased to be a label that means much. If everything’s urgent, nothing is.
Don’t just half-heartedly prune. Take everything off the table.
Then decide, truly, what goes back.
There will be tough choices and consequences.
But that’s just strategy. That’s OK. You can do that.
More Of. Less Of
On a related note, close to 500 of you downloaded the simple New Year tool last week.
It pulls you out of the minutiae of goals and resolutions and the like, while keeping you more grounded than a “one word of the year” delivers.
What’s just one thing you want more of? And what’s just one thing you want less than?
Brainstorm a few possibilities. Make a bold choice. Then keep using that to orient and navigate in 2026.
If you missed it, you can grab it here.
