The Tyranny of the Immediate
I've been reading about and trying to make more sense of the "Tyranny of the Immediate", a situation to which I seem to fall victim all the time. The phrase can be applied to all manner of scenarios – indeed if you Google it you'll come up with references to everything from the housing market to prayer. What do I mean by it and how does it affect me? Basically it is the daily conflict between what is deemed to be urgent at that moment versus what is important in the longer term. In my day-to-day, this takes one of three forms: Things or people busting my plans for the day/week/month with something that is just so urgent that it can't wait; Misunderstood priorities and/or dependencies in a project or infrastructure delivery leading to a short-sighted tactical solution; Short-termism in career and personal development – looking at what skills are needed now and studying for those, without considering the long term goals.