someone i’m productivity coaching recently asked a really good question. in regards to how to handle urgent vs important things, essentially, the question was about how to handle when the urgency level doesn’t match between the two people. and more specifically, how do you handle situations when things are urgent for someone else, but not for you?
i’ve got four specific tips to that point, but i want to say first that this problem is ubiquitous. i have never known anyone with a job (any job) to not have to deal with this at one point or another.
so the four tips:
ask just just how urgent the thing is
just taking the time to check with someone about how urgent something is can be incredibly helpful. sometimes, the request isn’t actually that urgent and being asked the question will surface that for the requester. sometimes, the request is actually urgent and knowing that can help it feel better to drop everything and handle it. everyone has to deal with emergencies because the world is a crazy place. but being able to tell when something actually is an emergency and when it’s just perceived as one but isn’t one is hugely important.
gently and respectfully remind them that you’re also accountable to other people (if you are)
sometimes people request things without fully thinking through other things you might be working on. this technique often works when handling competing demands on your time from different people in similar positions. for example, when dealing with students, it can be helpful to respond to a request with something like this:
hey, i appreciate that you’re reaching out for help and feedback on your assignment. i’m working with six other students who reached out earlier this week and i’m not sure that i can get back to you by the deadline. [insert how they could maybe get help from another student or reach out earlier next time…]
sometimes you just have to say no
sometimes the best thing to do is to just say no. there are many reasons for this (some of which i’ve laid out before), but one important one is systemic. when people around you know that they can come to you last minute with requests and you’ll drop what you’re doing to accommodate them, they treat you and your capacity as on-demand. this means they don’t learn to plan their work such that it doesn’t come to you last minute. saying no encourages people around you to know that if they want your time, they need to plan for it.
over time, build the capacity of the system to handle emergencies
the final part of the response in the above section is exactly what this tip is about.
laying out ground rules for how someone can successfully get your time and energy can be incredibly helpful. example:
hey simon, i’ve noticed that often catering orders coming from you are very close to the time of the events. sometimes i’m in the middle of something and can’t stop what i’m doing to place them. it would be much easier for me to place the orders if you could get them to me 24 hours or more from the time of the event. can you do that to help me out?
things like this build the capacity of the system to handle situations in such a way that keeps those things from becoming emergencies. in the long run, this is good for everyone in the system and the system itself.
donald trump and the explicit resurgence of white nationalism (previously known as white supremacy), imo, are in large part the reaction to the cultural de-centering of straight, cis-gendered, white, christian, able-bodied men. i know many people voted trump who don’t fit those identities, but the leaders of the backlash i believe are feeling the pain of being de-centered. and they’re being real strategic about dragging the whole system down/in reverse with them.Â
and it’s painful. as ta-nehisi coates brilliantly laid out in between the world and me, can you imagine how pissed you’d be at someone waking you up from the most pleasant dream? this except from a counterpunch article frames the section well…
“…The Dream of whiteness:
I have seen that dream all of my life. It is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations, and driveways. The Dream is treehouses and the Cub Scouts. The Dream smells like peppermint but tastes like strawberry shortcake.
You can just hear the cries emanating from the Fox News studios: “What’s wrong with having a nice lawn? What’s wrong with cookouts and Cub Scouts? I love strawberry shortcake and I refuse to apologize for that!”
But Coates won’t play this game. He immediately explains that what is wrong is that “the Dream rests on our backs, the bedding made from our bodies…”
now, obviously, being de-centered is worlds less pain than being intentionally, systemically, and strategically oppressed for centuries or longer. there is no equating the two. the pain of being de-centered is obviously less than the pain of being oppressed (raped, having your identity, land, culture, peace, love stolen.Â
but not acknowledging that pain, i fear, is only going to make the situation in the country (and the world) worse. pretending like the pain can just be ignored seems just makes the backlash worse, hydra-style.
in general, i think we all need to be doing more listening. i also think that everyone needs to be real clear about what role they play in our society and, consequently, what work is theirs to do. combining those things, i think we all need to be doing more listening, but we definitely don’t all need to be listening to everyone. everyone deserves to be heard, 100%, but that doesn’t mean everyone needs to listen to everyone speak their pain.
example: when male friends tell me they feel discriminated against because a job application mentions they’re prioritizing women for a position, i’m more than happy to listen to them complain and then explain how centuries of sexism have kept women out of power in myriad ways. i would never want any of my friends who are women to be subjected to that same false equivalency and complaining.
that analogy carries across all sorts of things, including the pain of being de-centered. am i thinking everyone needs to listen to white supremacists be sad about whiteness no longer being the cultural center? hell no. am i saying that someone needs to help those folks who have lived in a false reality for centuries process their pain? absolutely. but only because i fear that ignorance of that pain fundamentally undermines forward movement for all of us.
i dunno. maybe i’m wrong. but until whiteness becomes no longer desirable, we’ll be stuck at this impasse just like we have been before.Â
the other day a friend (can’t remember who) reminded me of one of my favorite lines from harry potter. cedric diggory and harry are in the maze hunting for the goblet of fire (book 4) and it becomes clear very quickly that he and harry are about to have to enter a wizarding fight. cedric looks over and says to harry “wands out, d'you reckon?”
i’m really feeling that idea right now. like… the idea of getting your wand out because… well… you’re gonna need it and soon. and it’s not the first time either of them had needed their wands during their time in the maze, but cedric had identified that a moment was coming that harry seemed not to be ready for.
there are a couple of other things floating around for me that also make the “wands out” phrasing interesting, mostly in relation to how important imagination is to the future. i really love the work of intelligent mischief and a tagline for one of their projects: “when reality becomes absurd, it’s time to get surreal.” i also really like bayard rustin and one of my favorite quotes of his is on my website: “i believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.” finally, for a while i was really into simone campbell’s idea of holy mischief.
anyway, over the weekend i had something like six or seven different meetings (some physical, some virtual) with friends and different groups. i’ve also been collecting different resources, some old, some new (i may or may not have thought about myself as preparing for my o.w.l.s… >_>).
here’s some stuff i gathered, but i’m curious what other people are learning and getting skilled up by…
the ten days following trump’s election were really off for me. i couldn’t focus or think clearly, my normal routines didn’t feel right, i didn’t enjoy things i usually enjoyed. i’ve started to adjust to a new normal and thankfully that means i’m getting back to listening to my podcasts.
yesterday, i started catching up on harry potter and the sacred text. the episode i listened to had a great moment from vanessa. you should listen for yourself (this hyperlink goes right to the timestamp in the episode and if you listen for abotu two minutes, you’ll get the whole thing i’m referring to – Harry Potter and the Sacred Text: Control: Dobby’s Warning (Book 2, Chapter 2)).
if you haven’t listened to it, vanessa is sharing a point about why she fasts every year. she says that around hour 22 of fasting, she becomes incapable of kindness and thinking. she says that getting to this point is an incredible reminder that there are types of oppression that make it difficult to be your best self. in this case, hunger makes her a person that, had she eaten, she would not be. having fasted for many days myself, i can totally corroborate that experience. everything changes about how you see the world when your stomach is empty.
this was just a really solid reminder of my friend erin’s favorite quotes:
everything changes. everything is connected. pay attention. — jane hirshfield
last week, a bunch of people started wearing safety pins in solidarity against hate. it’s a gesture that was borrowed from brexit (here’s an article explaining a bit of the history and long-ass snopes piece, too). the general idea is that the safety pin is a symbol that says “you’re safe with me.” my sense was that it was a gesture for people who wanted to show that they aren’t down with trump’s bigotry and the increasingly public hate for oppressed folks.
i actually heard a story where it worked. a women wearing a hijab was being harassed on a train. she saw someone else on the train wearing a safety pin. she walked over to stand by the person wearing the pin. the harasser stopped.
that said, as the internet does, the critique began to create more energy than the pins themselves. there was a small war in my facebook feed about whether or not people thought it was a good idea.
this article is indicative of the backlash, but there are many others (including this which is actually the best overall coverage of the phenomenon i’ve see so far).
to be clear, the point i’m getting working towards in this piece is a system one. people are allowed to be as angry as they wanna be at whatever they want. anger policing is oppression. full stop. but bear with me…
i’m gonna be a little blunt because i’m writing fast, but basically, my perception was that it seemed like more radical people shat on the less radical people. “i see you wearing that safety pin but if you’re not also down with my cause and my framing of my cause then fuck you and your symbol because you’re fake and weak.”
now i do see a point in that the pins as a symbol could actually backfire for the people who are increasingly the targets of explicit hate. in the best case scenarios, things like this tweet can happen:
in a worse scenario (because why not just be straight out with it), if the woman from the story earlier had walked over to the safety pin person, but then that person was actually a trump supporter and hurt her… like… fuck.Â
but MOST people i saw backlashing didn’t say that. i mostly just saw people say this:
now i’m seeing people say that they were interested in wearing the pins, but have decided to stop. i’ve totally stopped seeing them on the trains.
this hurts me real deep because i’m thinking about strategy and winning. if the effect of people wanting to show solidarity is rejection with anger and critique, how the fuck are we supposed to get them to take even more radical steps? (which is what’s needed to break down all these oppressive systems we’re all drowning in).
on an alternate note, my friend, felicia, posted an amazing note about the value of the safety pins for people organizing outside of cities:
i wish people had organized some active bystander trainings and harnessed the energy of the safety pin crowd to move us all forward (i guess i should do that if i’m over here complaining about it… i hear mit has some resources for this…). not only did we miss an opportunity, now instead we have even more division and a whole new wave of people who have learned to stay silent and do nothing (which is less than wear a symbol) because even their well-intentioned efforts get them attacked (similar to the starbucks #racetogether backlash).
hurt people hurt people. literally everyone has the right to be angry about whatever they want. but from a strategic standpoint, i’m not sure how any of us people who are in the sights of an increasingly explicitly white nationalist government are going to survive if we can’t constantly be building power.
