The red dot on the Slack icon isn’t just a notification; it is a pulse. It flickers with a frantic, artificial heartbeat that demands I drop the heavy iron wrench I’m mentally holding and tend to a fire that, upon closer inspection, is actually just a flickering candle in a drafty room. My heart is doing that thing again, that rhythmic thumping that matches the bassline of ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ by Queen, which has been looping in the back of my skull for 41 minutes. It’s a fast song, too fast for the slow, methodical work I’m supposed to be doing. But that’s the modern workspace, isn’t it? A high-tempo soundtrack for a series of low-stakes ’emergencies’ that eat our lives whole.
I’m staring at an email marked ‘URGENT’ in all caps, a digital scream from a director who likely hasn’t checked their own calendar in 31 days. The request? A spreadsheet update for a meeting that doesn’t happen until next Tuesday. There is no business impact if this stays undone for another hour. There is no world where this qualifies as a crisis. Yet, here we are, the adrenaline already coursing through my veins, ruining my ability to focus on the actual strategic project that could move the needle by 11 percent this quarter. We have become addicted to the rush of the immediate, even when the immediate is entirely inconsequential.
The Foley Artist and Interrupted Craft
This reminds me of Charlie P., a foley artist I worked with back in the early days of sound design. Charlie P. is a man who understands the difference between a manufactured sound and a real one. He can spend 61 minutes trying to find the exact right way to crinkle a bag of sun-dried tomatoes to mimic the sound of a forest fire. To Charlie P., the ‘urgency’ of a sound is about its resonance, not its volume.
The Craft
Mournful creak of wood (61 min effort)
The Manager Burst In
Demanding punch sounds (0 min effort)
But I watched Charlie P. break last year… He was recording the subtle, mournful creak of a wooden ship-a sound that required absolute silence-when his manager burst in… Charlie P. looked at the manager… He didn’t scream. He just let the silence stretch for 11 seconds until it became uncomfortable.
“
If everything is a punch in the face, then the audience stops feeling the pain.
He was right. Management has turned the workplace into a movie where every single frame is an explosion. After a while, you don’t see the fire anymore; you just see the smoke, and your eyes start to sting.
[The adrenaline of a false crisis is just a loan against tomorrow’s sanity.]
The Mathematical Lie of Priority
We pretend that this constant state of emergency is a sign of a high-performance culture. We tell ourselves that we are ‘agile’ and ‘responsive,’ but usually, we are just disorganized. True agility requires a stable base. You cannot pivot if your feet are never on the ground. When every task is a priority, the word ‘priority’ loses its etymological meaning. It comes from ‘prior,’ meaning ‘first.’ You cannot have 11 firsts. It is a mathematical impossibility and a psychological nightmare.
Time Spent Reacting
Quarterly Needle Mover
I’ve made this mistake myself… I once spent an entire weekend-roughly 51 hours of what should have been rest-reformatting a deck because a VP told me it was ‘critical’ for a Monday morning sync. The VP didn’t even open the deck during the meeting. I had sacrificed my sleep and my sanity for a fiction, a ghost of an emergency that vanished the moment the sun came up.
The Sugar High of Management
This manufactured urgency is the sugar high of management. It provides a quick burst of energy and a sense of ‘doing things,’ but it leaves the organization with a massive crash afterward… If you have to use the word ‘urgent’ to get your team to work, you have failed as a leader. You are using fear-even a mild, socialized version of it-as a substitute for purpose.
41 Emails
Proof of Busyness
Deep Work
Sacrificed
11 Pieces
Brain Sliced
But Charlie P. would tell you that the most important sounds are the ones you almost don’t hear… We are sacrificing the 10-year vision for the 10-minute reaction. It’s like selling your house to pay for a tank of gas.
Filtering the Noise: The 21-Minute Rule
I’ve started doing this thing… where I just… wait. When an ‘urgent’ request comes in that I know isn’t actually urgent, I give it 21 minutes. Usually, within that time, the person has either figured it out themselves or the ’emergency’ has evolved into something else entirely. It’s a way of filtering the noise.
The Necessity of Intentional Spaces
We need places to go where the tempo isn’t dictated by a middle manager’s lack of a To-Do list. This is why entertainment matters so deeply now. We seek out these spaces to recalibrate our internal clocks.
For an experience that invites presence rather than demanding panic, explore curated engagement spaces like:
(Inviting your presence for the sake of the experience)
I remember one specific Tuesday-I think it was the 11th of the month-when the ‘Stayin’ Alive’ song in my head was replaced by a literal siren outside my window. A real emergency. It was jarring because it was so different from the digital sirens I’d been hearing all day. The real siren had a weight to it. It had a purpose. By crying wolf 101 times a day, we’ve made ourselves deaf to the things that actually require our souls.
[The most productive thing you can do is often the thing that feels the least urgent.]
Reclaiming the Silence
What happens if we just stop? I turned off all notifications for 1 day. Do you know how many times my phone rang? Zero. Not once. But I finished the strategic plan I’d been procrastinating on for 31 days. I found the ‘sound’ I was looking for, much like Charlie P. finding the right creak for his ship. The world didn’t end.
Frantic
Deliberate
There’s a specific kind of bravery in being slow… We are terrified of the silence between the punches. But that silence is where the meaning lives… We need to reach over and pull the master fader back down. We need to reclaim the 11th hour for ourselves, not for the ‘ASAP’ email that will be forgotten by the 21st.
Hearing What Matters
I’m looking at the ‘URGENT’ email again. I’m going to close the tab. I’m going to go get a cup of coffee, and I’m going to watch the steam rise for at least 1 minute. The spreadsheet can wait. The world is full of sounds, and I’m finally starting to hear the ones that matter.