Urgent requests can wreck your time management because you keep dropping your real work, reacting fast, and ending the day exhausted—with nothing important finished. In this article, Jef Menguin shares a calm way to respond to urgent requests without sounding difficult or disappearing. Use the approach and pass it to your team so “urgent” stops running the day and priorities finally stay protected.
There’s a stretch in consulting when your calendar looks full, your inbox looks angry, and your phone feels like it’s vibrating even when it’s not. You have multiple clients, multiple deliverables, multiple conversations in flight, and yet each message arrives with the same energy: “We need this now.”
What makes it harder is the emotional tone behind it. Each client speaks as if they’re the only client you have. They want the fastest reply, the first slot, the most attention. If you don’t respond quickly, you can feel the heat. You start reading urgency as a threat: If I don’t answer, I might lose them.
Ten years ago, I remember staring at my screen late at night, about to reply to yet another “urgent” request, and I caught myself. I said a sentence in my head that felt almost rebellious: They don’t own me.
Not to justify neglect. To recover leadership—over my time, my energy, my day.
The problem isn’t urgency. It’s hijacking.
Urgent requests are normal. Business is messy. Deadlines are real. Customers complain. Leaders panic. Fine.
The issue is what urgency does to your thinking. It makes everything feel equal. It pushes you into reactive mode. You start serving the loudest voice instead of the most important outcome. You jump. You scramble. You overpromise. Then you spend the rest of the day cleaning up decisions you made too fast.
And when you live like that, you stop running your day.
Your day runs you.
Respond with leadership, not reflex
Here’s the identity shift that changes the way you handle pressure:
I’m not on-call. I’m accountable.
On-call people react to volume. Accountable leaders respond to value.
This doesn’t mean you ignore urgency. It means you translate urgency into something you can actually manage: a clear source, a clear tradeoff, a clear next step. You move from “I have to reply now” to “I will reply well.”
The Pressure Map (one minute)
Before you respond to an urgent message, do this quick check:
What is the pressure really coming from?
- Deadline — time is tight and real
- People — expectations, politics, approvals, conflict
- Risk — money, reputation, compliance, safety
- Unknown — missing info, unclear scope, messy situation
- Volume — too many tasks at once
Pick the top one. Just one.
This matters because each pressure type requires a different response. If you treat all urgency the same, you’ll solve the wrong problem fast.
The sentence that keeps your day under control
Now respond with a boundary that still sounds helpful.
Use this template:
“I can deliver ___ by ___. If you need it earlier, I can do ___, but we’ll need to move ___.”
That line does three things in one breath. It acknowledges the need, sets a clear commitment, and makes the tradeoff visible. It turns urgency into a decision instead of a demand.
Most people don’t need instant. They need clarity.
So give clarity.
A quick example (so you can hear the tone)
Client: “Can we get the revised deck today? Urgent.”
You: “Yes. I can send the revised deck by 5 PM. If you need it by noon, I can revise only sections 1–3 first, then finish the rest tomorrow morning. Which works for you?”
Notice the posture.
You’re not apologizing. You’re not defensive. You’re not disappearing.
You’re leading.
Respond this way
You stop losing days to other people’s panic.
You still serve clients, but you do it with steadiness. You protect your deep work. You avoid overpromising. You reduce the number of “urgent follow-ups” because your updates become reliable.
And something subtle happens: people start respecting your time more, because you treat it like it matters.
That’s not selfish.
That’s sustainable.
If this hits close to home, and you want the bigger reset—not just for work, but for how you live—this page connects the dots: Win in Life.
Try this today
The next time you see the word “urgent,” pause before you type.
Do the Pressure Map.
Pick the real source.
Reply with one clear commitment and one clear tradeoff.
That’s how you keep your day under control—without losing the people you serve.
If you’re tired of knowing but not doing…
Let’s make one shift easier to live daily.
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