URGENT!

URGENT!   Strategies to Control Urgency, Reduce Stress and Increase Productivity, by Dermot Crowley, Wiley 2020

When everything is URGENT, nothing is.

Not only can we do something about the urgency that drives most of our time and effort, we absolutely must do something about it.  Dermot Crowley

Crowley explains.  "I could step on a piece of glass on the beach and end up in the emergency ward.  (I hope I won't but it is possible.) 

I could get a call f rom a client chasing some information I had promised but forgot to send.  (I am confident that won't happen!) 

I could be asked to join George Clooney on his boat on Lake Como if I can just get there by 8 pm tonight (I am positive this won't happen."

The author further says that although many, many things could happen, most won't.    This subtle but important difference between responsiveness and reactivity is what Urgent! explores.  Realizing there is a difference, says Crowley, gives us more power over stress.  

Crazy times!  Just when we thought we could dump the masks and go into a store, hit the library, even revisit church post-Covid, we find things are crazy urgent - not just accelerated and smooth, but our days are broken by nutso phone calls, text messages, emails, bosses, speed-sick highway drivers, even cancelled school days and web freezes and bloops.  Its inevitable that the blood pressure soars past 160 over 80, and we begin to wonder, "Is this all really necessary?"

Its hard to find a middle ground between crazy Type A high performance stress - my personal favorite - and sensibly paced work and life, a kind of middle-ground where we survive well and healthy while managing to get all the Type A items completed (obviously not The Mill Girl's Preferred Approach).  Author Dermot Crowley has an answer.  He wants us to learn and remember how to:

* modulate and reduce stress, especially in a working team envorinment

*  control and dial up and dial down stress levels, as needed (think George Patton)

*  maintain your teams, despite work from home schedules mixed with crazy operations demands

*  keep focus on "the important stuff," and "keep it simple" prioritization.

If you, like many of the healthcare facilities we have visited post-pandemic, are feeling burnt out and stressed, almost incapable of revving up for that one additional minute, you will find this well-measured book by Dermot Crowley a real alternative, a look toward possible life-altering approaches.  Beats drugs.  

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers,  patriciaemoody@gmail.com