Caught taking action without proper fore-thought! I shared something on Facebook without checking it out first.  It looked like an innocent public service but my sharing may give some a false sense of security.  I usually check on the validity of a post but was rushed and through technology, it was easy to share.

What causes us to act without fully understanding what is before us? Is it the overwhelmed feeling we get because of technology?  Not that long ago, because of communication, we did not have the expectation that replies would be instantaneous.  We now keep looking at our e-mails for a response to something we wrote 5 minutes ago.  We also did not receive 50 or 100 communications a day!

I have a client who calls these expectations the ‘Tyranny of the Urgent’.   How often in our day-to-day lives are we pushed into decisions by the perceived urgency for action or to make a decision?  We need to step back and observe if we are acting or reacting to the situation.  This is important for both our health and good decision-making.  We used to be stressed by the volume of paper in our in-basket.  Now it is the volume in our inbox.

We often forget that technology is just a tool. In business, it is important to remember that you control when you look at your inbox and you can set aside a specific time for responding during your day.  For urgent matters, there is the telephone.  This applies to personal life as well.

Don’t be a victim of the ‘Tyranny of the Urgent’!