How to counteract the "mere urgency effect"

Completing important tasks when there are always urgent ones seems to be a perpetual human concern.

In a fascinating study, Zhu, Yang, and Hsee found evidence that we tend to choose to do urgent tasks over other tasks simply because they are urgent.

The researchers call this ‘the mere urgency effect’, which I think can be translated to ‘the mere urgency effect’ in Swedish.

For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the ""Done!"" podcast:

A common trap to fall into

We know that we should prioritize important tasks first, but urgent ones often catch us off guard, resulting in less time spent on the important ones and making it harder to reach our goals.

So, what can you do about this fact? Well, you could scold yourself for prioritizing wrong and tell yourself to shape up. But that won’t get you anywhere. Instead, take advantage of the ‘mere urgency effect’ and let it help you get the important tasks done — even before they become urgent.

Do this

If urgent tasks are tempting, but you want to get important tasks done, make the important tasks seem more urgent. You could, for example:

Break down the task strictly: set deadlines for working on the important task and give them sharp due dates for you to keep.
Raise the ambitions: if you seemingly have plenty of time for the important task, add more to the ‘delivery’ so that you have to finish more steps in the same amount of time.
Compete with colleagues: create a competition with colleagues where you, for example, compete to finish a task of roughly the same scope. Make a bet or come up with a prize that will motivate you.
Set a deadline: even if there is no explicit deadline for the important task, set one for yourself that is tight enough for you to ‘push’. When I wrote this section, I didn’t have to finish the manuscript until the next afternoon, but I decided to finish it before lunch on the same day, which was only half an hour later. That decision kept me from ‘checking likes’.
Share the task with a colleague: if possible, split the task with a colleague and set a deadline for each of you to complete your part. You probably want to keep the deadline you agreed upon, right?
Make a promise: tell a colleague that you will want to show them something you have done on Thursday afternoon — for example, how far you have come. You surely don’t want to have to say, ’I only got this far.’

Better prioritization

If you make important tasks seem urgent, even if they are not, you help yourself prioritize them over other tasks, if the aforementioned study on ‘the mere urgency effect’ holds.

Sure, if you’re already stressed and pushing yourself further wouldn’t be beneficial, this isn’t a tip for you. But if you feel fine and have some capacity left, try it and see what difference these tricks make for you.

What do you do?

Do you have any other ways to make important tasks seem urgent? Write to me and let me know!

(Looking for more tips on how to get things done? Check out my post about how to complete the small things in a few hours!)

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