My family and I finished up a relaxing Sunday evening playing game together. We love the mixture of family time spent around the table and friendly competition. As soon as the points were counted and the winner was declared, chaos broke loose.
It seemed that everyone had to use the restroom at the same time. Now, remember there are 7 people in my family. Two of my kiddos dashed to the bathroom to address their pressing needs. The other children stood up and started doing the "potty dance" - you know what I am talking about, right?
Screams start filling every room in the house
- "I've got to go potty!"
- "How long are you going to be?"
- "I can't hold it any longer!"
In the moment, I started to panic, because if things were going to go bad, they would have been really bad. I was picturing wet spots on the floor, or even worse. Fortunately, we avoided all accidents and in the end, everything came out ok (potty pun).
I look back on what happened last night, I realize that there is a lesson to be learned.
Urgency and Importance
When making a decision, we must be ready to evaluate the urgency and importance of the situation we face.
Urgency speaks to the timing of a matter, while importance speaks to the significance or value of a matter
Urgent - requiring immediate or attention
Important - of great significance or value; likely to have a profound effect on success, survival, or well-being.
The need was real. It had to be addressed, and it had to be addressed quickly.
The problem was that my family pushed off addressing the issue. Instead of fixing the "problem" at the appropriate time, we waited and waited and waited until the non-urgent problem became urgent.
It would not have been as much fun to pause the game for ten minutes for everyone to use the restroom, but that would have prevented the situation from escalating.
Forward Thinking Can Help De-Escalate An Urgent Matter Before It Happens
Have you ever seen ...
- someone at work frantically finish a report 30 minutes before a meeting when they were goofing off all week?
- someone contact their credit card company asking for leniency for their late payment even though they snoozed their payment reminder?
- someone completely lose it when their tire finally goes flat? You know, the tire that has had a slow leak for 3 weeks.
- someone does not tell the driver of a vehicle that they need to use the restroom until after passing a sign that says the next rest stop is 100 miles away?
These types of situations are important, but they do not always have to become urgent matters. A little planning goes a long way to de-escalate this types of concerns.
I cannot control the urgency of every matter. There are a lot of external forces that come into play, but I do have control over a lot of situations in my life.
The question is - "Am I willing to take responsibility in the moment to make sure that chaos does not break loose at a future time?"
My Advice - Don't push off something that will take you 10 minutes to do right now that might take you 30 minutes to do later.
A lot of time and energy is used when a situation becomes urgent, because we have to spend extra time addressing the chaos, instead of soley focusing on the issue.
I Want To Hear From You
Have you ever faced any of the situations described in this post? I hope I am not the only one.
- What do you do when you face an urgent situation?
- What do you do to prevent an important matter from becoming urgent?
- How do you feel when you cannot prevent a matter from being urgent?
Thanks for stopping by! I look forward to hearing from you.