When Delay Isn’t Procrastination but Prioritization
In the 4Ds of Prioritization - Delete, Delay, Delegate, Do - today we turn to Delay.
If Delete is the clean, firm “no,” Delay is the softer “not now.”
It’s a “not now” rather than delete because there’s something about it that fits in with your priorities or your actual required job tasks (not the ones you make up and self-assign due to overing).
Delay is the boundary that protects your pace and keeps urgency culture from hijacking your nervous system.
When I worked with one corporate client, she was leading a team inside a workplace that glorified speed. Every request was marked “ASAP” or came with !!! marks in red. She told me she felt like her brain was always revving, never resting. Chasing disco dancing squirrels, we’d joke.
When she tried the Delay practice, that urgency started to shift and the fog cleared out. She started asking herself:
Does this really need to be done right now? If yes, what hard fact tells me this (versus the feeling of urgency)?
What happens if I move this to next week? Or next month?
What’s most important today and what can wait?
The first time she told her boss, “I’ll get this to you next Wednesday,” her body tensed. But the surprising thing? Her boss said, “That’s fine.” No backlash. No drama.
She realized the urgency, while coming from others, was more about other people’s procrastination or inability to differentiate good ideas from all ideas. She also realized that her sense of urgency was coming from her own internalized pressure to perform faster, better, more perfectly, and to always be on. By delaying, she reclaimed her sense of agency.
Delay matters as a boundary because:
It challenges the myth that everything is urgent. It’s usually not.
It gives your brain space to focus on what really matters. Then that allows your nervous system to settle a bit so you can shift into proactive mode rather than reactive.
It keeps you from scattering your energy across too many directions at once.
Delay doesn’t mean you’re avoiding or procrastinating. It means you’re protecting the pace that keeps you grounded, thoughtful, and effective.
Your reflection practice:
Over the next few days, choose one thing on your list to Delay.
Identify a task you’ve been rushing to finish. Or you feel you’re being rushed to do.
Ask yourself: Does this actually need to be done right now?
Move it. You can schedule it for a later date that feels spacious.
Notice what happens in your body when you give yourself permission to wait. Relief? Anxiety? Curiosity?
Remember: urgency culture thrives when we abandon our own timing. Delay is your way of reclaiming it.
Most of us have been trained to believe everything is a fire. But as another client said: those urgent requests are almost never fires that you need to put out. They are more likely smoldering ashes that can wait or be handled by someone else.
This is boundary work. It resists the toxic conditioning that speed = value. Instead, you decide the pace that honors your body and capacity.
Like I wrote before about designing spacious routines: your rhythms and boundaries create the conditions where you can breathe, instead of constantly running.
P.S. You don’t have to resist urgency culture alone. Join The Grove and connect with others choosing a slower, steadier pace.