WTL Issue 022 | April 22, 2026 |
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The Departure Board Read TBD
Lessons from the Long Haul
The corners of the windows kept filling with snow, building to the same point before the wind took it all away and started again. Standing inside the former juvenile detention center, now a guesthouse, our group had the place to ourselves. It was impossible to tell whether it was actually snowing or whether the gusts were simply rearranging what was already there. The suburban that had dropped us off had left no trace. The houses right next door had disappeared into the white.
We had been in Pt. Lay that morning for community meetings, the sun bright and the wind strong next to the Chukchi Sea. The plan was Kotzebue, then Anchorage, where we had panel presentations at an Arctic conference. The weather in Kotz had other ideas. It pushed us further south, into this unexpected facility with its available beds and warm kitchen. The departure board read TBD.
What stretched out in front of us wasnβt inconvenience. It was time.
We used it. We spread out across rooms, from white boards to common area couches. We worked on strategic planning that we had been meaning to get to. We cooked. We rested. We talked about things that hadnβt been space to say in the rush of a packed itinerary. The storm that had stranded us had also, quietly, given us something.
What I came home with, beyond the reminder to always back essentials in your daypack, was a distinction I've been sitting with ever since. There are two kinds of urgency, and they do not belong in the same category.
One is the flight that cancels. The storm rolling in from the Bering Sea. The panelist who drops out two hours before the session. That is urgency. It arrives without warning and asks for your full, present response.
The other is the deadline you've had on your calendar for six weeks that you've been circling around, postponing, letting crowd in at the last moment. That is not urgency. That is something that was once optional and became, through inaction, a kind of emergency. The two can feel the same in the body. They are not the same in origin.
Urgency is what you could not have planned for, not what you simply didn't.
Field-Tested: The Two-Question Urgency Sort
When something arrives feeling pressing, before you rearrange your day around it, try sitting with these two questions.
1. Could I have seen this coming?
If yes, and you had the information to act earlier, what you're feeling is not urgency. It's the cost of delay. Worth naming clearly, and without shame, because naming it is the first step toward not repeating it.
2. If I don't respond in the next two hours, what actually happens?
Be honest. Often the answer is a slightly uncomfortable conversation. Sometimes nothing at all. Occasionally something significant. That range is your actual compass.
These two questions work best when you already have systems supporting how you plan and protect your time. Knowing your peak hours through your energy fingerprint (Issue 006) means you notice when manufactured urgency is consuming time that belongs to your deepest work. The quarterly pivot, pause, or power down check-in (Issue 012) helps you catch the slow-building non-urgencies before they crowd your calendar. And the four-square method (Issue 019) gives your most important work a protected home before the day's noise fills the available space.
The things that matter most rarely arrive with sirens. They ask to be taken seriously in advance.
Signals & Shifts
βMission Partners writes about urgency culture in the workplace and how understanding where that reflex comes from makes it possible to build something different and healthier paced.
Mindfulness supports the inner conditions that urgency culture works against, making space for the creative and deep thinking that matters most in your work. I reach for box breathing when I need to re-center, or when a bumpy flight has my nervous system convinced something is wrong. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold, repeated for a few cycles.
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βQuestion for reflection: Think of a time in the last month when something felt urgent and pulled you away from work you had intended to do. Looking back, which kind of urgency was it, and what, if anything, would you do differently? I'd love to hear what comes up for you.
Take good care of yourself and the work that's yours to do. Both matter more than you know.
Nikoosh
Work That Lasts arrives every other Wednesday. Forward to a colleague who might need these tools, or reply and let me know what's working in your own practice.
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