A client called me recently to express concern about disruptive requests the CEO of a company she provides services to was making. He was regularly calling her with demands after business hours, and continually changing the requirements for his projects at the last minute.
My client was eager to fulfill her professional commitments, but she wasn’t sure how she could keep up with what she described as her client’s “state of prolonged emergency.”
Listening to her concerns, I couldn’t help but think that, in our era of instant gratification, her client isn’t the only one suffering from this condition – many people now seem caught in a constant stand-off between tasks and time, victims of permanent emergency disorder.
But we’re rarely faced with a real emergency, defined by the Oxford dictionary as “a state of things unexpectedly arising and urgently demanding immediate action.” Most of what we call emergencies are predictable. It’s only our failure to plan and prioritize that brings things to a flash point of urgency.
So what can you do to manage your responsibilities, keep distractions at bay and stop creating your own prolonged states of emergency?
First, focus on what you want.
Write a list of what you want to achieve, what is important to you, what makes you happy, and allocate the time you need to ensure getting to your positive outcomes.
Second, identify every temptation you are aware of that you use as a distraction:
checking email, going on Facebook, surfing the internet, hanging out by the coffee machine, etc. Make a list of what is not important, gets in the way of what you want to achieve, or doesn’t make you happy.
Review these two lists every morning along with your schedule and ask yourself, “What should I focus on today, how will I spend my time, and what might distract me?” Then decide what to focus on and what to ignore.
Are you affected by permanent emergency disorder? If so, what are you willing to do about it?