Why You Need Urgency to Be Productive

Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on Unsplash

Life is short. You never know when your time is up. So you must make the most out of the time you have. To make the most out of your time, you need to have urgency.

There are only 24 hours in each day. 8 to 9 of which you spend sleeping… If you are getting enough sleep. Therefore, you actually only have 15 to 16 hours to use each day. 

That’s not a lot of time. Especially if you work a 9-5 job.

You don’t have any time to waste. 

So, let’s not waste any more time… Let’s dig into the importance of urgency.

Having urgency makes you get things done

Knowing how little time you actually have to spend lights a fire under you. You know that you don’t have time that you can waste. Each hour is important. So, you need to make the most out of your time. 

This fire underneath you will make you become proactive. Instead of letting things happen, you make them happen.

It’s not worth the wasted time hoping that you get what you want. You’ve got to go get it yourself.

And so you develop an aggressive mindset. 

This mindset is aggressive in the sense that you’re ready to do what you need to do to get what you want.

And once you realize something isn’t working for you, you fix it immediately.

With this mindset, your productivity skyrockets.

You get things done.

You can’t be passive… It only wastes your time.

Urgency prevents procrastination

Having urgency makes you value your time. 

You can’t afford the luxury of procrastinating. Your goals aren’t going to achieve themselves.

Each minute you procrastinate is a minute longer it’ll take for you to reach your goals.

That’s an extra minute of desiring those goals. Another minute of being unhappy. And so on. Each minute you waste procrastinating is an extra minute of suffering.

That doesn’t sound like fun, does it?

So, being urgent prevents you from procrastinating. 

If you truly value your time, you won’t be able to procrastinate. The feelings of guilt and regret will be too strong for you to handle. You’ll have to do something about it… You’ll have to be productive.

You can’t have urgency yet constantly procrastinate. 

Urgency and procrastination are polar opposites of each other. 

Set deadlines to build urgency

To build your urgency, set deadlines for yourself.

Write down a date for when you want to accomplish your goal. Make sure it’s a realistic timeframe for the goal. But don’t give yourself an extremely long timeframe to accomplish it. It should be a tight, but realistic deadline.

Why?

Because this deadline will put you into high gear. You won’t be able to start tomorrow. You’ll have to start today. And you’ll need to put your best effort into working towards the goal if you want to accomplish it.

Deadlines make you have urgency. They make you do things now instead of later.

It’s why your boss at work or teacher at school gives you deadlines for assignments.

Because deadlines make you get things done.

Use your calendar

Calendars are great tools for building urgency. They’ve got each day listed out conveniently for you. They’re well-organized. And they have lots of space on them to write on. So, write things down on your calendar. 

Write down the deadline for when you want to accomplish a certain goal. You can also write in when you want to accomplish milestones that are between you and your goal.

You’ll see the days passing by, which will turn into weeks and months. Each day should get you one step closer to your goal. Both on the calendar and with the progress you make.

Calendars give you a long-term approach to progress to your goal’s deadline.

Make to-do lists every day

To-do lists are an effective way to accomplish things on a day-to-day basis. 

You simply write down the tasks you need to accomplish during the day. And as the day goes along, you cross off each task you complete.

It’s an organized system that tells you what you need to accomplish during the day.

And you can see how productive you are each day. Did you get everything crossed off your list? Or did you have some things left to do?

To-do lists build urgency into your day because you have a list of tasks you need to get done that day. 

If you don’t accomplish them, they carry over into the next day. This makes the next day more challenging. And if you don’t get everything done that next day, the day after that becomes even more difficult. 

So, to-do lists keep your foot on the gas pedal. 

To-do lists give you a short-term view of how you progress to your goals.

You may not have tomorrow

Tomorrow is never guaranteed. You could die at any time. Each day could be your last.  

It sounds morbid, but it’s the truth. 

And you should keep this in mind every day. 

These thoughts will give you perspective. You’ll reflect more on how each day goes. You’ll think about what you got done and what you still need to accomplish. But this reflection will take on a whole new meaning. You’ll reflect on the importance of what you’ve done.

If you died tomorrow, would you be proud of what you’ve accomplished? What is the legacy that you leave behind?

The thought of death is not something you should fear. It should be something that you think about daily. Let it drive your daily actions. And let it fuel your productivity and desire for success.

Wrapping up

Urgency is crucial to your productivity. If you want to maximize the value you get out of your time, then you need to build urgency.

You cannot procrastinate.

Your time is too valuable to waste. 

Remember, time only moves forwards. You’ll never regain the time you’ve spent. Once you’ve spent it, it’s gone.

So spend your time wisely.

Make the most out of each day. 

Organize your daily and long-term plans to help you reach your goals as efficiently as you can. 

There’s no time to waste.