Immediately if not before

“To be done immediately if not before!” was a favourite expression of one of my teachers at school. His particular subjects, French and (if my recall is correct) Spanish had given him, I suppose, an insight into the Mediterranean races love of urgency. The Levantine “Yallah!” meaning “come on let’s go” and “Pronto!” – “Quickly” have passed into common use far beyond their geographic origins.
Even if I’d thought of it at the time, I probably wouldn’t have dared to ask my teacher. “OK, so it’s urgent, but is it important?” And if I had, a swift clip round the ear could well have been the response. However, in the grip of adrenalin fuelled urgency, it’s important to ask ourselves that question, even if only as a fleeting check. For if we don’t, we can be rushed along on a torrent of minor tasks that just have to be done now.
The mobile ’phone is a wonderful invention. Remember those thrillers of the sixties and seventies whose tension depended on searching for a working public pay ‘phone? Mobile ’phones have improved personal safety. Trouble is, they have to be answered: or do they? At least three people of my acquaintance use them only for making calls, and not for receiving them, they just don’t answer if they ring; it is for such people that silent mode was invented. Can you do that, just for a day? Well perhaps that may be going to extremes, but it demonstrates the capability of a thing to be both urgent (if you don’t answer that ‘phone within a few rings, the opportunity for communication may be lost) and unimportant (it was no-one you knew, just a ’phone jockey trying to make his sales target).
So what about the other way round, can something be important but not urgent? Just think about the classic one-liner, “Just because one woman can have a baby in nine months, doesn’t mean that nine women can have a baby in one!” the important principle underlying this is that steadily working at something important is likely to lead to a better result than trying to throw a pile of resources at it at the last minute.
But what if that does happen, what if you have something to do that’s both important and urgent? Well, just drop everything and get on with it is the normal (and probably only practical) human response. So if we let everything get into this state, we wind up having to do a tax return on our wedding anniversary. Ouch! Stress! Never again!
This leaves only one possible combination, something that is neither. Well, in a disciplined world, that’s what the waste paper basket and delete button are for.
The ideal, for a happy, healthy and successful life therefore has to be, distinguish between urgency and importance and try always to work on the important stuff before it gets to be urgent
Right, sorry, got to go, but my ’phone’s ringing and I’m expecting calls from the Tax Man ... and my Wife.