Urgent! by Dermot Crowley Summary

Urgent! by Dermot Crowley explores how modern productivity culture traps individuals in reactive urgency, harming mental health, relationships, and long-term effectiveness. It offers strategies like the Urgency Playbook to prioritize tasks, reduce stress, and reclaim control through proactive planning.

Professionals, managers, and anyone overwhelmed by constant deadlines will benefit. It’s ideal for teams struggling with burnout or poor time management, offering tools to balance urgent tasks with meaningful work.

Yes. Crowley combines research with actionable frameworks like the Eisenhower Matrix and proactive mindset principles. It’s praised for avoiding fluff and providing direct solutions to modern productivity challenges.

The book uses the Eisenhower Matrix (urgent/important quadrants) to categorize tasks:

• Do now: Critical deadlines (e.g., client crises)
• Schedule: Long-term goals (e.g., strategic planning)
• Delegate/Delay: Interruptions or low-impact tasks
• Delete: Time-wasters

Proactive work involves planning, prioritizing by impact, and minimizing last-minute urgency. Examples include setting clear deadlines, avoiding procrastination, and “measuring twice” before acting to reduce errors.

• Don’t cry wolf: Reserve urgency for true emergencies.
• Plan multi-step workflows: Anticipate bottlenecks.
• Delegate effectively: Offload non-critical tasks.
• Delete distractions: Eliminate time-wasting activities

Fake urgency includes self-imposed panic (e.g., unchecked emails) or external pressures (e.g., unnecessary deadlines). Crowley advises auditing tasks to distinguish real priorities from manufactured crises.

Yes. The book advocates setting realistic deadlines, clarifying task importance, and modeling proactive behavior to prevent urgency overload. Example: Using shared calendars to visualize priorities.

Some may find its focus on self-discipline unrealistic for chaotic work environments. However, its emphasis on systemic planning addresses this by redesigning workflows, not just individual habits.

With remote work and AI-driven productivity tools increasing distraction, Crowley’s strategies help filter signal from noise. The urgency trap persists, making his frameworks timelier than ever.

While both address productivity, Urgent! focuses on systemic causes of overwhelm (e.g., urgency culture), whereas Eat That Frog! emphasizes tackling hard tasks first. They complement each other.

Though not a direct quote, Crowley’s principle to “measure twice, cut once” underscores avoiding rushed decisions that create avoidable urgency later.