Removing the Sense of Urgency
From scarcity to slack: cultivating time wealth in everyday moments.
Urgency has a way of stealing your attention before it steals your time. Your brain narrows to just get it done which can cause you to move so fast that you miss out on some of the richness of life happening around you.
Of course, sometimes that urgency is real: Kids need to be picked up. Flights take off whether we’re ready or not. But most of the stress we carry each day? It’s not coming from true emergencies. It’s coming from the constant feeling that everything needs to happen right now.
At any given moment we’re stretched thin by competing demands:
> Answer the email.
> Make the decision.
> Fix the problem.
> Hurry!
When life feels this way, we don’t just feel busy, we feel behind.
The false urgency trap.
A little pressure can be useful. For the task you’ve avoided, a deadline might be the thing that activates you. But for most of what lives on our list, urgency isn’t the ideal motivator yet has become the default way we move through our days. It has turned into a constant background hum. One we try to tune out but we can feel pulling on us even when we try our best to be present to what matters to us.
The tricky part is that urgency can masquerade as responsibility. We tell ourselves:
“I should handle this now.”
“If I don’t do it immediately, it won’t get done.”
“If I slow down, everything will fall apart.”
But often, the opposite is true. When we move too fast, we make mistakes. We move forward with an option we’re not thrilled with because it’s there now. We say yes because it’s quicker than navigating a conversation.
This hastiness often leads to creating more work for ourselves later. Urgency is rarely efficient. It’s just loud.
Urgency is often a signal, not a fact.
When I ran a personal concierge business, I was invited into other people’s urgency constructs. A client would message with a timeline that felt frantic but when we slowed down to ask a few clarifying questions, we’d realize:
the deadline was flexible
the consequences weren’t as high as they felt
there were more options than we thought
and the best path forward required less speed, not more
We always honored real constraints, of course. But more often than not, the most helpful thing we could do was decrease the intensity. Because the moment urgency drops, something else becomes available: creativity, discernment, collaboration, and ease.
What’s actually happening to your brain.
When everything feels urgent, the brain responds as if there’s danger. Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline flood the system, narrowing focus and prioritizing speed over discernment. This response is essential in true emergencies, but when urgency becomes chronic, it comes at a cost: attention tightens, reactivity increases. Access to creativity, planning, and thoughtful decision-making diminishes. Over time, life feels louder and more pressing — not because it is, but because the brain is operating under sustained pressure.
This is where the concept of slack becomes so powerful. In their book Scarcity, Eldar Shafir and Sendhil Mullainathan describe slack as margin - a buffer, a little breathing room. Slack doesn’t require hours of free time or an empty calendar. It’s much smaller and far more attainable than that.
When slack disappears, when every minute is booked and every task feels urgent, the brain slips into scarcity mode where tunnel vision sets in. We focus on what’s immediately in front of us and lose sight of the bigger picture. This is an adaptive response in short bursts, but exhausting when it becomes our default way of operating.
Slack reverses that pattern. Even a small amount of margin expands our thinking. We slow down enough to see options, weigh decisions, and respond instead of react. We think more clearly, make better choices, and feel calmer moving through our days.
Without slack, we’re stuck in reaction mode. With slack, we get to choose.
And that ability to choose how we spend our time and attention is what time affluence really is.
A simple way to untangle urgency.
Here’s where I like to start:
Take a deep breath.
Settling your nervous system always starts here.Find something in your life that feels urgent.
Not catastrophic, just that thing you keep thinking “I need to deal with this.”Ask: Does this truly need to happen quickly?
Be honest.If “no”, Name what’s driving the false sense of urgency.
Is it guilt? fear of falling behind? a desire to be seen as responsible? discomfort with waiting? perfectionism?Then choose one small shift in direction:
Do (with intention)
What’s the smallest meaningful step you can take today without rushing?
Drop
What part of the urgency story can you release? (“It has to happen today.” “I have to do it alone.” “I can’t disappoint anyone.”)
Delegate
Who can share the load, even a little? A partner, a friend, a neighbor, a professional, a system?
What you’ll notice.
The relief is often immediate. Not because the task disappeared (or maybe it did). But because your nervous system finally got the message: You’re not in danger. You’re in a moment.
And from that place, your next step becomes clearer. You make fewer mistakes, you choose better options, you move forward in a way that actually supports your future self.
Removing urgency doesn’t mean moving through life lazily. It means moving through life truthfully.
One step at a time. With your attention intact. And with more support than you’ve been giving yourself permission to ask for.
So take a deep breath. It will all happen in good time.