We carry Blackberries, cell phones and mini-notebooks. We're captives to our email. I suspect that there are staff who would accept walkie-talkies if they were offered. Things always seem so... urgent.
It's flattering to be needed. But let's be honest: The University endeavour is not akin to fire and rescue.
So, here's the crunch: With all this urgency are you,
- more, or less, creative;
- better informed, or just distracted;
- spending more, or less, time thinking and reflecting;
- engaged in more, or less, meaningful consultation?
I'm not the first person to notice. The Q&A with Harvard Professors Teresa Amabile and Leslie Perlow, "Time Pressure and Creativity: Why Time is Not on Your Side" is quite interesting.
Why does this happen? Because it can.
Analogous to Parkinson's Law (that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion") is, if you will, Danby's Law:
If not otherwise constrained, the 'urgency' of work rises insofar as the technology and the processes of communication allow.
We have all had periods of unavailability for one or another reason, only to find that the world and faculty, department, project, case or plan continued without our urgent attention.
Deep breath, settle down, do better. ▪
will be the philosophy of government in the next.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) 16th US President
