Episode 6: Urgency Is a Feeling, Not a Fact
Okay, Actually is a podcast for people who are working hard and starting to wonder if the problem is them. It's not. In under 30 minutes, we dig into what's truly broken and figure out how to build a solution that can actually work.
In this episode, I get into urgency: what it actually does to your brain, why fake urgency is so hard to call out, and why fire drill culture costs you more than just your Tuesday afternoons. If you've ever hung up on a work call for an issue at home (or vice versa), this episode's for you.
00:00 A Daughter's Emergency
01:47 What Urgency Does
04:24 Bin Gate
05:32 Real vs Fake Urgency
07:56 Too Many Channels
10:09 Fire Drill Culture
13:44 Holidays Reveal Truth
15:11 Three Filtering Questions
17:10 Recalibrate Your Alarm
Three questions to ask before you respond to something "urgent:"
- Whose urgency is this? Did I generate it, or did someone hand it to me? Is this actually mine to own?
- What actually happens if I wait? Real urgency has a real answer. Manufactured urgency evaporates, resolves without you, or turns out to be someone else's anxiety.
- Is this urgent, or is it just loud? Volume is not severity. The number of channels someone uses to reach you is not a measure of importance.
Referenced in this episode: The High Cost of Fake Urgency in the Workplace — Quartz, April 2026
Find me here:
Transcript
A couple of years ago, I was on a work call.
2
:I'm definitely not gonna pretend it was
the most important meeting of the week,
3
:but it was important, and I was trying
to stay focused when I started getting
4
:text messages from our youngest daughter
saying there was a huge emergency.
5
:We had to call her immediately.
6
:Everything was awful and falling apart.
7
:And I started to get nervous,
and I hung up on the call, just
8
:saying, you know, "I'm so sorry.
9
:I'm getting messages from my daughter.
10
:This is an emergency."
11
:And the next update I get from her is
that, uh, the dress that she ordered from
12
:Rent the Runway didn't fit and wasn't
going to work for the formal event that
13
:weekend, and she had nothing to wear
14
:I wanna be clear, I actually
do consider that an emergency.
15
:It's just more of the call me
as soon as you're free emergency
16
:instead of the drop what you're doing
and call me right now emergency.
17
:Big line between those two, which was
the subject of the entire conversation we
18
:had, uh, after resolving the dress issue.
19
:And to be honest, it's s- it's actually
kind of hard for me to be that critical
20
:because any sort of flair for the
dramatic that was being exhibited here
21
:definitely did not come from my husband.
22
:It was obviously me who had been
modeling and starring in urgency
23
:theater, and I did it so well my kid
was able to perform it right back
24
:at me, and I fell for it completely.
25
:When I got that message, I
didn't think for a second about
26
:not hanging up on the call.
27
:I knew hanging up was the most
important thing for me to do, which
28
:is not a failure at parenting, and
since it only happened once, it was
29
:definitely not a failure at parenting.
30
:But that's what urgency does.
31
:It closes your thinking window before
you even have an opportunity to open it
32
:I'm Karen Doak.
33
:This is OK Actually, where we get clear,
get sorted, get going, and stay sane.
34
:This week, we're going to talk about
urgency, what it actually does,
35
:what it creates, and the impact it
has on you and the people around
36
:you, personally and professionally
37
:So if we take a step back and think
about what urgency really does, it
38
:collapses the distance or the gap
that's between something is happening
39
:and I must do something right now.
40
:If you're really trying to figure
out what you should be doing, what an
41
:actual problem is, you need a gap in
time to be able to think about it, and
42
:urgency eliminates that every time.
43
:We've had a couple of conversations on
past episodes of this podcast already
44
:about misdiagnosis and ground truth
and friction and measuring the wrong
45
:things and hiring towards problems
we haven't named, and this episode
46
:is about what makes all of those
things harder to catch, the thing
47
:that closes the diagnostic window
before, before you can even open it.
48
:Alarms are going off all the time.
49
:I shared an example previously of
a customer who called me screaming
50
:about a software outage when there
was definitely not an outage.
51
:That's the professional version of this.
52
:Someone feels urgency, they escalate,
they take it to more people.
53
:Nobody stops to ask whether the alarm
means anything, partly because in that
54
:situation, you tend to trust and follow
the lead of the person acting that way,
55
:but that person has also not stopped
to question whether this really means
56
:anything beyond misdirected frustration
Not being able to think properly when
57
:you're operating under urgency isn't
just a bad habit or a skill gap.
58
:There's a real physiological
reason it's hard.
59
:Quartz had a piece on this in April,
"The High Cost of Fake Urgency in the
60
:Workplace," and it put this plainly,
quoting a therapist who said, "Once that
61
:pressure crosses someone's threshold,
the brain starts shifting out of higher
62
:order thinking and into fight, flight,
or freeze, and in that state, people
63
:are no longer learning, reflecting,
or problem-solving at their best.
64
:Their capacity for creativity, judgment,
emotional regulation, and nuanced
65
:decision-making starts to narrow."
66
:Making the right diagnosis, thinking
through a problem carefully, these
67
:are higher order thinking tasks, and
urgency literally switches off the
68
:part of your brain that can do them.
69
:A moment that lives rent-free in my
head is from an early season of The
70
:Great British Bake Off, where the
bakers had to make Baked Alaska on
71
:a particularly hot day, which is…
72
:I will just say something
that's very annoying to me.
73
:I don't know why they're always tempering
chocolate and making ice cream on the
74
:hottest day of the year, but I have
not yet been hired to consult on that
75
:show, although I am certainly available.
76
:Ian's Baked Alaska was melting
after a mishap with another baker.
77
:It was definitely an accident.
78
:No one needs to blame Diana for this.
79
:And instead of letting the judges taste
the components or have something to
80
:see, imperfect as it was, he threw it
in the bin and walked out of the tent.
81
:This has caused a scandal that
was referred to as Bin Gate, and
82
:frankly, he looked like a total ass.
83
:Because he had nothing to
present, he was eliminated.
84
:S- If he'd done nothing,
he'd have had something.
85
:Then the bin was the urgency response.
86
:The counter was the, the diagnostic
or the thoughtful response, and his
87
:thinking window completely closed, and
the decision he made was objectively
88
:worse than no decision at all.
89
:It's not a huge deal if urgency only
happens when something really is on
90
:fire, but fake urgency, the kind we feel
constantly, is creating a real problem.
91
:What that looks like in
practice is you're never really
92
:solving what you need to solve.
93
:You're just responding to an alarm, and
those two activities are not the same.
94
:So if you think about the last fire drill
you really dealt with at work, at home,
95
:wherever, and ask yourself whether you
solved the problem or whether you just
96
:put out whatever flames were touching you
at the minute, I think you'd acknowledge
97
:that those are totally different
activities We've all heard that if
98
:everything's an emergency, then nothing's
an emergency, and that's absolutely true.
99
:Not all urgency is fake.
100
:Some things really are on fire.
101
:The court's piece lists the real
exceptions in a workplace context, like
102
:risk of missing payroll, a security
breach, loss of a major client, a
103
:company-defining strategic deal.
104
:And personally, we tend to go
back to health and medical.
105
:Is someone bleeding?
106
:Is something, like, actually on fire?
107
:Is there anything that's going to require
intervention from a professional with
108
:additional expertise happening here?
109
:So that's-- there's a more useful
distinction, the difference between true
110
:market urgency, which is real external
pressure, you know, a competitor move or
111
:something happening with a customer, or a
really short window or an actual medical
112
:situation, and manufactured urgency.
113
:Manufactured urgency is anxiety in a
costume playing the role of leadership,
114
:and that key word is anxiety.
115
:False urgency usually isn't malicious.
116
:My daughter wasn't trying to create panic.
117
:She was anxious, and that was real.
118
:But false urgency is someone's unprocessed
fear looking for a place to go.
119
:The client from the outage
example wasn't evil.
120
:He was panicking, and he had a
phone, and unfortunately my phone
121
:number, and the ability to keep
calling until he got an answer.
122
:Getting someone to respond
is one of the easiest ways to
123
:quell that anxiety for people.
124
:So how can we model our own responses
to urgency in a way that teaches others
125
:that they can take a breath and pause
rather than continuing to pass anxiety
126
:down the line in some sort of really
fucked up pay it forward dynamic?
127
:One of the specific challenges of twenty
twenty-six is that we're all reachable
128
:on so many different channels, and more
channels means more ways for people to
129
:manufacture urgency, intentionally or not.
130
:Being reachable on phone, text, WhatsApp,
Signal, email, and Slack means someone
131
:who really wants to reach you is going
to try all those ways, and that doesn't
132
:mean the issue is more important.
133
:It may just mean they have the free
time to harass you in the moment.
134
:We've been trained to read volume of
contact as a signal of importance.
135
:Someone who texts and then emails
and then Slacks and then calls
136
:isn't technically telling me their
issue is critical, but I've been
137
:trained to interpret it that way.
138
:What I should actually be
realizing is they're not telling
139
:me something's a problem.
140
:They're telling me that they
are in a state of panic.
141
:The number of channels someone
uses to reach you is not a measure
142
:of the issue's severity, it's a
measure of their anxiety level.
143
:You can't always fix your accessibility,
but you can stop letting delivery
144
:method be the verdict on priority.
145
:I could get three missed calls from my
father and assume there's a major problem,
146
:but two of them are butt dials, and one
was an apology for butt dialing me twice.
147
:Just because someone has a smartphone
and your number saved doesn't mean
148
:that they get to interrupt your day.
149
:I had a previous boss who
pinged me on one channel.
150
:I was unfortunately in the bathroom,
so it took me four minutes to respond.
151
:When I came back and replied,
she said, "Don't worry."
152
:She'd checked my calendar and decided
to jump into the next meeting I w-
153
:had on Zoom, and we could talk there.
154
:But that brought in a whole other person,
derailed a whole other agenda, and
155
:prevented the two of us from having the
conversation we actually needed to have.
156
:All of that driven by where
she was emotionally, not by
157
:anything that was on fire.
158
:And was whatever we were talking about
so urgent it couldn't wait four minutes?
159
:N- no, it certainly could wait for,
dare I say, six or seven minutes
160
:Fire drill culture is becoming the norm.
161
:There's a big difference between
individual manufactured urgency and
162
:organizational manufactured urgency.
163
:Fake urgency looks like initiative to
people who don't care about details.
164
:"Oh, Bob's always busy.
165
:Bob's always doing something."
166
:It's this costume of productivity
without the actual work.
167
:Fire drill culture is what
happens when manufactured urgency
168
:becomes the operating mode.
169
:It's not an event anymore.
170
:It's the climate.
171
:It's the constant state When you
were in school, you had maybe
172
:one or two fire drills a year.
173
:We had a few more this one year in
elementary school when there was
174
:a kid who kept pulling the fire
alarm falsely, and then the cops
175
:came, which was, like, a huge deal
in my small town of five thousand.
176
:But outside of that, let's just assume
standard was once or twice a year, and
177
:that meant that the alarm meant something.
178
:But in a workplace where the fire
drill's happening constantly, it
179
:becomes ambient noise and an excuse
for why nothing else is moving.
180
:Everyone is performing a response
to whatever the emergency is as a
181
:substitute for doing actual work.
182
:And when absolutely everything
around you is feeling urgent, people
183
:stop thinking effectively, and they
start to lose trust in whoever is
184
:sending out the urgency signal.
185
:It goes back to everything that that
therapist said in the Quartz piece.
186
:If people are losing their capacity
for creativity, judgment, emotional
187
:regulation, and nuanced decision-making,
that is a huge problem in any environment.
188
:Those are some of the most critical
skills I can possibly think of for any
189
:person or organization to be operating
at their best, and they're being
190
:hampered by something we're allowing
to be a norm that doesn't need to be.
191
:When we normalize urgency,
urgency means nothing, and that's
192
:not just an individual problem.
193
:It's an organizational one.
194
:I worked one place where the fire
drill culture was entirely driven by a
195
:big executive meeting every Thursday.
196
:We always knew that sometime late Tuesday
afternoon, somebody was gonna be asked
197
:about data, reporting that probably didn't
exist or slides that needed to be made
198
:or something that no one could find.
199
:That part was normalized, but nobody
knew who the person was gonna be who'd be
200
:asked, what data was going to be required,
what random question was gonna come
201
:through, so it was impossible to prepare.
202
:God forbid anyone be given enough warning
to actually plan their time effectively.
203
:And we all just ended up kind of twiddling
our thumbs from four PM on on Tuesdays,
204
:waiting to find out whose afternoon
and evening was about to get destroyed.
205
:Normalized urgency leads to us
anticipating and assuming emergencies
206
:and then operating with that in mind.
207
:In that environment, people stop starting
things that require sustained attention
208
:on Tuesday afternoons because they've
learned that it would get interrupted,
209
:and that's the organizational pattern.
210
:A- and it, and it doesn't stay at work.
211
:When urgency is the constant operating
mode, you start making the same
212
:calculation in the rest of your life.
213
:You stop signing up for things.
214
:You pre-cancel.
215
:You build smaller.
216
:You do less.
217
:You commit to less.
218
:In one fire drill-laden culture, I
didn't book travel for a three-day
219
:charity walk with friends because
I knew something would come up,
220
:and I wouldn't be able to go.
221
:I stopped calling my dad
on a regular schedule.
222
:I didn't book a trip to visit
my daughter on the West Coast.
223
:Not because urgency took those things from
me, but because I'd already learned not
224
:to count on having the space for them.
225
:And that's the real cost of
sustained fire drill culture.
226
:Not just the things it interrupts,
but the things you stop attempting All
227
:of this has been top of mind because
we've just had Memorial Day weekend,
228
:and I think holidays become a really
useful data point in this conversation
229
:because they impose a boundary that
most people can't impose for themselves.
230
:It's hard to tell a client they'll
be fine if they don't get something
231
:until Monday, but it's a lot easier
to say, "Oh, it's a holiday weekend.
232
:Nobody's around.
233
:Is Tuesday okay?"
234
:Yeah, everyone's fine with that.
235
:It creates a very different
culture about what's urgent,
236
:And within that, it starts to
reveal what issues and requests
237
:were actually load-bearing.
238
:A lot of people are surprised
by how little couldn't wait.
239
:There are fires that put themselves
out, issues that just needed time
240
:and a few deep breaths before people,
you know, calmed down in a way they
241
:couldn't when they were screaming fire.
242
:And, and I'm not talking
about unplugging as self-care.
243
:I'm talking about the visibility
a few days away gives you.
244
:What could wait?
245
:What could you postpone?
246
:What you actually lose sleep over?
247
:What you could let move slower?
248
:That's useful diagnostic information.
249
:A few days away will tell you
more about your urgency culture
250
:than any formal assessment.
251
:The fires that survive a long weekend
are worth your full attention.
252
:They're still burning.
253
:But a lot of what has people
running around on Thursday
254
:and Friday, not real fires.
255
:In the interest of giving you something
concrete to work with, y- you're
256
:not trying to eliminate urgency.
257
:That's totally unrealistic, but
you do wanna restore it as a valid
258
:signal and make it mean something,
and not let it be a management
259
:style or, God help us, a personality
trait that you pass on to others.
260
:Whether you're dealing with an angsty
teen before prom, a frustrated customer,
261
:a dysfunctional leadership team, or a
spouse who only communicates some of the
262
:information you need but leaves critical
pieces blank like some kind of Mad
263
:Lib, having a way to filter is helpful.
264
:It restores the gap for you, and
it lets you actually question
265
:whether something is truly urgent.
266
:So the questions I ask myself in this
situation , first, whose urgency is this?
267
:Did I generate it?
268
:Did someone hand it to me?
269
:Is this actually mine to own?
270
:That's kind of key, figuring
out the origin and the owner.
271
:Second, what actually happens if I wait?
272
:Real urgency has a real answer.
273
:Manufactured urgency evaporates,
resolves without you, or turns out
274
:to be someone else's anxiety and
not an action you needed to take.
275
:And third, is this urgent,
or is it just loud?
276
:Volume is not severity.
277
:The number of channels or number
of times someone reaches out to
278
:you is not a measure of importance.
279
:You may be familiar with the Eisenhower
Matrix, but it separates urgent
280
:from important on two different axes
because they're not the same thing.
281
:Urgency is about time pressure.
282
:Importance is about actual consequence.
283
:A lot of what feels urgent is neither.
284
:The goal isn't to be the
person who never feels urgency.
285
:It's to be the person who can tell the
difference between a Rent the Runway
286
:situation and an actual emergency.
287
:Most of us have lost that calibration,
and if you're the person who can bring
288
:actual calm and order to a panicking
room, that is rare, and it is worth
289
:so much So my question for you is, how
many fire drills did you have this week?
290
:Can you count them?
291
:If you can't, that's
another kind of problem.
292
:Either way, it's important information.
293
:That alarm is supposed to mean something.
294
:If it's going off all day, every day,
you're not in a high-stakes environment,
295
:you're in a dysfunctional one, unless
you're working in an emergency room.
296
:But even then, there's a triage
system, and we did already learn
297
:from The Pit that only the worst
doctors are the ones stuck on triage.
298
:So if this is happening, if alarms are
going off all the time, again, it's not
299
:about being in a high-stakes environment,
it's about being in a poorly managed one.
300
:Or maybe you built a poorly
managed one, or maybe you've
301
:perpetuated that poorly managed one.
302
:These things are all fixable,
but only if you're willing to
303
:acknowledge what's actually happening.
304
:I started this talking about hanging up on
a work call for a Rent the Runway dress.
305
:The dress was not an emergency, but the
truth is the call was probably fine, too.
306
:Most things honestly are.
307
:Getting your alarm calibrated
is the key to everything here.
308
:So thank you so much for listening.
309
:I'm Karen Doak, and this has been
OK Actually, where we get clear, get
310
:sorted, get going, and stay sane.
