Work With Urgency

Urgency in work is a quality that few possess. We have urgency to meet deadlines, sure, like the panic we feel as we scribble the last bits of our homework down on the bus ride to school. But we usually don't feel that urgency the day before, the week before, or the month before.⁠⁠

I could spin this quote as a motivational hack, a way to trick yourself into staying 15 minutes longer in the gym or staying up 20 minutes later to study. But I'm not here to give you the psychological equivalent of 'deficit deadlifts' in hopes of solving deep rooted problems. I'm here to remind you of the field we all play on. In systems where the stakes are the absolute highest, you either meet the demands that those stakes require or you pay the forfeit.

The fact is, someone IS trying to take it from you: the other people in your space fighting for finite status and resources, the forces of an unpredictable world that meets your plans with chaos, and you, through the pattern of dysfunction in your approaches that results in your own self-sabotage. ⁠⁠In medical training and sports performance, in work projects where millions are on the line or in your relationships to the people most important to you, your casual, concern-free approach will guarantee a slow-burn, "Indie Film" tragedy on par with the Wrestler or the Whale.

Your rate of growth has to exceed the loss from what those entities skim off the top. So work like you don't have the luxury of saying "I've done enough". ⁠⁠

Train. With purpose.⁠