Urgency is a skill

My favorite part of The Greatest Night in Pop, the documentary about the recording of “We Are the World,” is spotting Dan Aykroyd among some of the biggest musicians of the eighties. The song was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie in 1985 to raise money for famine relief in Africa. With Quincy Jones producing, dozens of stars gathered to record it, including Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Paul Simon.

So why is the guy from Ghostbusters singing alongside them?!

In an interview with New Hampshire Magazine, Aykroyd explained that he and his father were looking for a business manager when they accidentally walked into Ken Kragen’s office. Ken was not a business manager but a prominent talent manager who had been working with Quincy to get the musicians together to record the song. The organizers chose for it all on a single night because so many of the artists would already be in Los Angeles for the American Music Awards. That same day, Aykroyd and his dad cluelessly walked into Ken’s office.

Ken immediately recognized Aykroyd from his work on SNL and said “so long as you are here, would you like to come and join this ‘We are the World’ thing?” Aykroyd could’ve said no. He could’ve stopped to think about the preparation he would need to stand toe-to-toe with Bruce Springsteen and Ray Charles. But instead, he just agreed and walked in the room. It was his willingness to act right away that earned him a spot next to all his musical heroes.

A sense of urgency is one of the most useful skills you can develop to unlock new opportunities.

I’ve gotten clients simply because I responded within minutes, we spoke shortly after, and then started working together the next day. Similarly, when looking for collaborators for a project, I tend to work with the ones who match my sense of urgency and respond quickly.

Everyone is busy, and somehow even scheduling a conversation can become a weeklong project. We’ve gotten so used to waiting that when someone gets back to us right away, it feels refreshing.

I love when someone says, “I have a few minutes now if you want to talk.” We could have this whole thing figured out before the calendar invite would have arrived. That willingness to give someone your attention makes working together feel easier, and people remember that when they’re deciding whom to call.

The same sense of urgency can make a difference in how people experience your work. The longer something takes, the higher the expectations become. A first pass shared in a day gives you a chance to discuss it while there’s still plenty of time to change direction.

Especially early in your career, a bad design solution in a day can be more useful than an ‘okay’ solution in a week. Getting something out quickly makes it easier for them to take a chance on you. Once you’ve talked through the first version, the next one benefits from what you’ve learned together.

I talk to a lot of young designers who are looking for their big break, but their portfolio is often out of date. When I ask how soon they could have something ready for us to look at together, their answer becomes very telling.

The speed by which they come back with an update, tells me how much attention they’re giving to something they’ve said matters to them. Urgency forces you to examine your priorities. If getting a job is the thing you care about most, working on your portfolio deserves the most attention. It’s easy to spend weeks wanting something to happen while continually prioritizing other things.

A helpful trick I’ve learned is to think of my interests in phases, depending on what I’m trying to accomplish at any given time. If something matters enough to pursue, I give it more of my time for a while, knowing I can come back to other interests later. Otherwise, they all compete for my free time and I end up making very little progress on the thing I supposedly care about most.

Admittedly, “answer your emails and do the thing you’ve been putting off” is a disappointing career secret. I wish I had something more sophisticated to offer. But enough of us struggle to do those things consistently that you can get surprisingly far by actually doing them.

There will always be another reason why tomorrow might be more convenient. But the world keeps moving while you’re deciding when you’ll be ready.

I bet there’s probably something you could do in the next fifteen minutes that would make tomorrow easier. It might be the message you keep rewriting, or the unfinished work someone could already be helping you improve.

A lot can happen between taking that first step now and when you were planning to get around to it. By the end of today, you could be considering an opportunity that would have gone to someone else tomorrow.