It’s not a luxury, it’s a choice.
We can build slack into our lives. We can create cycles so that we don’t need to dance with a crisis around time on a regular basis.
If there’s another train after this one, you don’t have to fret.
If the deadline for the project is tomorrow, not today, you don’t have to sweat it.
If the guests aren’t arriving for an hour…
Sometimes, we choose to use the urgent crisis as fuel. We set up our lives around creating these deadlines, reminding ourselves that if we cross that line, we’re dead.
And then we allow the world to do it to us. To create urgencies simply to take our attention and focus.
Productivity is a measure of the value of what we ship in the time we’ve got to invest. It’s not measured in drama.
It’s possible to do great work without putting everything in jeopardy.