Someone Else’s Urgency Is Not Automatically My Priority

This post is part of The Mompreneur Edit — a philosophical manifesto for high-achieving women rewriting the script. View all Mompreneur Edit posts HERE

 

The lesson I’m about to talk about didn’t come from a leadership book.

It came from a Saturday morning text message.

The short version of the story goes like this.

I was scheduled to give a presentation but I realized I’d be out of town on the day I was scheduled.

So I emailed the person managing the schedule and let them know.

Normally the scheduler just moves things around. It’s part of the role. Instead, I got an email back saying something along the lines of: Here’s the schedule. Find someone to switch with.

Fine.

Not my favorite administrative task, but also not the end of the world.

The presentation was months away, so the issue landed somewhere on my running to-do list. Not at the top, but somewhere below the things that were actually urgent.

Things like:

• running three businesses

• managing employees and clients

• raising three kids

• remembering to call the pediatrician back for the third week in a row

• locating a missing soccer cleat

• and occasionally eating lunch before 3pm

You know. The glamorous life of a working parent.

A week or two later the scheduler followed up asking if I had switched with anyone yet.

I replied honestly: Not yet, but it’s on my list.

Because it was.

And then I returned to the chaos of my actual life.

A few days later my employee mentioned someone had left me a voicemail on the main office line asking me to call them back.

Not my cell phone.

The main office line.

Which meant they hadn’t bothered to check the membership directory where my direct number is listed. Or send a text. Or continue the email conversation we were already having like it was, you know, the year 2026.

But sure. Call the main office number and leave a voicemail.

That definitely feels like the fastest way to reach someone.

So “return that call” joined the to-do list as well.

Right under the pediatrician.

Then a few days later I got another email.

The scheduler had already moved my presentation to a different date.

Perfect.

Problem solved.

I replied: That works, thanks!

End of story.

Or at least I thought it was.

Then Saturday morning rolled around.

Seven in the morning.

And I received a text message informing me that it was hard to imagine anyone referring me business or scheduling meetings with me if I “never call people back.”

Okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk....

My first instinct was not particularly professional.

My brain produced several extremely creative responses involving profanity and suggestions about where certain opinions could be stored.

I wrote at least ten of them.

Then I deleted them all.

Because responding to that message would have been about as productive as yelling at a bad Google review.

The relationship with the person sending it is already irrelevant.

But how you respond is visible to everyone else who might eventually hear the story.

Future clients.

Future collaborators.

Future referral partners.

So instead of engaging, I forwarded the message to the chapter president with a short note explaining that there was no professional way for me to respond directly.

Not because I wanted drama. But because if someone is comfortable sending messages like that to me, they’re probably sending them to other people too. And no one paying real money to participate in a professional organization should have to deal with that kind of nonsense from someone managing a calendar.

Then I closed the laptop and went back to my Saturday.

Problem removed.

Energy reclaimed.

Weekend preserved.

The interesting part of this story isn’t the message itself. It’s the assumption behind it. The assumption that someone else’s administrative inconvenience should automatically become my highest priority.

This happens in business all the time. Someone sends an email, then a follow-up, then a voicemail, then a text. And somewhere along the way they begin to believe that because the issue feels urgent to them, it should feel urgent to you too.

But here’s the reality. You have absolutely no idea what someone else’s life looks like. You don’t know what their calendar looks like. You don’t know what responsibilities they’re juggling. You don’t know how many decisions they’ve already made that day. And yet people make this assumption constantly.

My life, for example, is not a calm, spacious landscape of open time waiting to be filled with other people’s administrative preferences. It’s closer to air traffic control. Three businesses. Three kids. Employees. Clients. School logistics. Dinner logistics. Sports schedules. A rotating cast of missing shoes, permission slips, and grocery lists.

Somewhere inside that chaos lives a constantly shifting to-do list that decides what happens today and what happens next week.

And occasionally something like “return a voicemail about a calendar swap three months from now” falls a little lower on the list.

Not because it’s malicious. Not because it’s disrespectful. But because real life contains priorities.

What fascinates me about situations like this is how often the people creating artificial urgency have absolutely no visibility into the mental load of the person they’re demanding attention from. They just assume responsiveness. They assume availability. They assume their issue deserves immediate attention. And when that attention doesn’t arrive fast enough, irritation begins to creep in.

Sometimes it even turns into a lecture. Which is how you end up with a Saturday morning text message from someone who knows nothing about your life but has decided it’s their job to teach you a lesson about professionalism.

There’s also a gender dynamic here that’s hard to ignore. Professional urgency gets interpreted very differently depending on who is expressing it. When men push urgency, it’s often interpreted as leadership. Decisive. Direct. Results-oriented. When women push urgency, the same behavior gets labeled demanding or difficult.

But interestingly, the same people who complain about women being “too demanding” are often perfectly comfortable assuming unlimited access to a woman’s time. Especially if that woman is a mother. Especially if that woman is used to managing things. Because somewhere deep in the cultural operating system there’s still a quiet expectation that women will smooth things over.

Respond quickly. Absorb inconvenience. Make everyone else’s life easier.

But motherhood does not make you infinitely available. Running a business does not make you infinitely available. And someone else’s administrative problem does not automatically become your emergency. Your priorities belong to you.

Not the loudest person in your inbox. Not the person who left the most voicemails. Not the person who decided your delayed response needed a lecture.

One of the most useful skills you can develop in business — and in life — is the ability to recognize artificial urgency. Someone else’s stress does not automatically become your responsibility. Someone else’s timeline does not automatically become your deadline. And someone else’s frustration does not automatically deserve your emotional energy.

Sometimes the most professional thing you can do is simply refuse to participate in the escalation. Close the laptop. Go back to your Saturday.

And remember that the people who truly respect your time rarely need to demand it in the first place.

The Real Lesson

Someone else’s urgency is not automatically your priority.

And if someone’s emotional stability hinges on whether you return a voicemail within forty-eight hours, I would gently recommend they consider hobbies.