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You know that feeling when you pull over to answer an email that absolutely cannot wait? Or when you’re checking Slack during dinner because someone might need you?
That used to be normal. For a lot of founders and sales leaders, it still is. But constant urgency is not a business requirement. It’s a design flaw.
I run a very low-urgency business. Very intentionally. There’s never a point where I think, “Oh my God, this has to get done today.” I’ve spent three years building systems that prevent urgency from taking over.
Key Takeaways
- Corporate culture trains us to seek dopamine hits from urgency and immediate responsiveness, rewiring our brains away from deep focus
- Cal Newport’s Deep Work methodology provides a foundation for batching tasks, time blocking, and eliminating distractions
- Specific tactics include silencing all notifications, keeping communication apps closed except at designated times, and setting away messages that manage expectations
- Low-urgency businesses require intentional systems and boundary-setting to prevent reactive crisis management
- Success doesn’t require scaling aggressively. Freedom of time, creative freedom, and freedom of choice can be more valuable than growth.
Who This Is For
This article is for founders and sales leaders tired of constant crisis mode. If you’re refreshing your inbox compulsively, if every Slack message feels urgent, or if you can’t remember your last two uninterrupted hours to think, this is for you.
The Real Problem: We’ve Been Trained to Crave Urgency
Raise your hand if you feel like you’ve been personally victimized by the corporate America obsession with everything needing to be done right now and everybody needing to be available immediately.
We fall into this trap of hyper-arousal. We start rewiring our brains to seek the dopamine hits that come with urgency and feeling really needed. We answer our Slacks. We constantly refresh our emails.
To an extent, it’s not even our fault. We have this tendency to reply to everything immediately because we’ve been set up by this cultural and corporate narrative. That’s how we’re told we should operate.
According to a Harvard Business Review study (https://hbr.org/2018/02/how-to-spend-way-less-time-on-email-every-day), the average professional spends 28% of their workday on email. That’s over 11 hours per week. Add Slack and Teams, and the interruption problem gets worse.
The issue is deeper than bad time management. We’re actively retraining and rewiring our neural pathways. We need to bias towards focus and against that hyper-arousal, distraction, dopamine-seeking mindset.
Once you see urgency as culturally conditioned rather than inevitable, you can start to change it.
The Foundation: Cal Newport’s Deep Work
Cal Newport’s Deep Work methodology is a known concept. Here’s how I apply it to run a low-urgency business.
Deep Work is about creating conditions for sustained concentration. It involves batching tasks, time blocking, and eliminating distractions.
I lean all the way into that concept. I batch create everything I possibly can. I time block as much as possible. I cluster activities as much as possible.
Even stuff like podcasts gets batched. I have recording dates. On a typical recording day, I might do a live show in the morning, followed by two or three conversations in the afternoon. My mind is fully focused on showing up excited, and I’m not distracted by anything else.
When I was writing my book, I had my process. I had every Friday afternoon time blocked to write. I showed up every single Friday with the specific thing I was going to write.
Everything’s batched. Everything’s scheduled. That frees me up to spend time in the comments talking to people instead of scrambling to create content at the last minute.
Batching keeps you in one mode of work instead of constantly switching contexts. Context switching destroys focus. When you group similar activities together, you maintain energy and do better work.
Tactical Method 1: Silence Everything and Close Your Apps
Here’s the method I use to eliminate constant interruptions.
I don’t keep my Slack open during the day. I have all of my notifications silenced on my phone and on my computer. Everything is silent so I’m never getting distracted by that little Slack click noise or an email ping.
I keep my email and my Slack mostly closed. I’ll open them at certain times and then close them again so I don’t get caught in that loop of refreshing and looking for something new.
This was hard to do at first. You have that instinct where you want to go open your Slack and check it. But that instinct is exactly the dopamine-seeking behavior we’re trying to retrain.
The compulsive checking habit is the problem. When you silence notifications and only open communication apps at designated times, you regain control over when you engage with communications instead of letting them control you.
Tactical Method 2: Set Away Messages That Manage Expectations
Here’s the method I use to set clear expectations with people trying to reach me.
I keep away messages on my email and all of my social channels. My email away message says: “Thank you so much for reaching out. I practice Cal Newport’s deep work methodology, which means there may be a delay in replying to your message. Trust that I have it and that I will get back to you.“
My away message on LinkedIn is more direct. It basically says I don’t check messages in the platform and directs people to better ways to reach me.
These messages manage expectations so delayed responses don’t damage relationships. Nobody has ever complained about getting a response a day later when I’ve set that expectation upfront.
The Deeper Principle: Build Systems That Prevent Fires
Here’s the principle I operate by: urgency is usually a systems failure, not an inevitability.
I have spent three years building my life and business so things should not come as surprises. There should not be fires we need to put out.
But creating that means I have to be better than ever at setting clear expectations and setting really clear boundaries.
I can’t give you a step-by-step process because it’s specific to how your business operates. But the shift starts when you stop accepting urgency as normal and start questioning what systems would prevent it.
Ask yourself: What fires keep showing up? What creates the “oh my God, this has to get done today” moments? Most of the time, those moments come from unclear expectations, poor planning, or failure to communicate timelines earlier.
When you design your business to prevent surprises, you create space for work that actually matters.
The Business Philosophy That Makes This Possible
Here’s the principle that saved my business: success doesn’t require scaling to the moon.
Early on, people told me the only way to run a business was to scale aggressively and hire all of these people. I knew the most important thing for me was getting freedom back. Creative freedom. Freedom of time. Freedom of choice. I needed to do that as a solopreneur, at least for now.
People told me I was wrong. That approach wasn’t scalable. I was going to get burned out.
I am so grateful I stood my ground on what I knew was best for me.
One of the most important things I did was ignore that advice. It allowed my business to make it into year four with a runway, a good reputation, and a good pipeline
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/bdm/us_age_naics_00_table7.txt), about 40% of small businesses don’t make it past year three. Aggressive scaling wasn’t going to help me survive. Building a sustainable business model that gave me freedom was.
This doesn’t mean scaling is wrong for everyone. But sustainable success doesn’t require aggressive scaling. Freedom can be more valuable than growth. You get to decide what success looks like based on what creates the life you want.
What Low-Urgency Business Actually Looks Like
A low-urgency business doesn’t mean you work less. It means you work intentionally.
You time block your days. You batch similar activities. You silence notifications and close communication apps except at designated times.
You build systems that prevent fires. You set clear expectations and boundaries with clients and team members.
The result is sustained focus on high-value work. Better relationships because you’re fully present. A business that doesn’t burn you out.
How to Start Building Your Low-Urgency Business
Start small. Pick one practice from this article and implement it this week.
Silence your notifications. All of them. See what happens.
Or set up an away message on your email explaining you check messages twice a day and respond within 24 hours.
Or block three hours on Friday for deep work on one project. Protect that time like you would protect a client meeting.
The goal is not to implement everything at once. The goal is to start retraining your brain away from urgency addiction and towards sustained focus.
You’ve been conditioned to crave constant availability. That conditioning can be reversed. But it takes intentional practice and consistent boundaries.
Low-urgency business is possible. You get to decide how you run your business.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Deep Work and how does it apply to sales?
Cal Newport’s Deep Work is a known methodology focused on achieving sustained concentration by eliminating distractions and batching similar tasks. In sales, this means blocking time for prospecting, batching your outreach, clustering meetings, and protecting focus time instead of constantly context-switching between tasks.
How do I stop checking email and Slack compulsively?
Silence all notifications on your phone and computer. Keep email and Slack closed except at designated times. When you open them, handle what needs handling, then close them again. The compulsive checking habit exists because we’ve been conditioned to seek dopamine hits from new messages. Breaking that habit requires removing the triggers.
Won’t clients get frustrated if I don’t respond immediately?
Not if you set expectations upfront. Use away messages that explain your approach and commit to a response timeframe. Most clients care more about clear expectations than immediate responses. The ones who demand instant availability at all times might not be the right fit.
How do I batch tasks effectively?
Group similar activities together and complete them in dedicated blocks. Examples: block all podcast recordings on one day, batch content creation on Friday afternoons, cluster prospecting calls in the morning. The key is staying in one mode of work instead of switching contexts throughout the day.
Is it realistic to build a business without urgency?
Yes, but it requires intentional design. Build systems that prevent fires instead of accepting constant crisis as normal. Set clear expectations and boundaries. Question whether the “urgent” work is actually urgent or just poorly planned. Urgency is often a systems failure, not an inevitability.
What if I work in a corporate environment where urgency is the culture?
You can still apply these principles within your scope of control. Block focus time on your calendar. Set expectations with your team about response times. Use away messages during deep work blocks. You may not be able to change the entire culture, but you can create boundaries that protect your ability to do focused work.
Should I stay as a solopreneur or scale my business?
That depends on what you want. Aggressive scaling is not a requirement for success. If freedom of time, creative freedom, and freedom of choice matter more to you than growth for growth’s sake, staying lean might be the right call. You get to define success based on what creates the life you want.
Can you recommend books that will help me learn more?
Yes. Read Profit Generating Pipeline: A Proven Formula to Earn Trust & Drive Revenue by Leslie Venetz, available at www.salesledgtm.com/book. The book outlines a 9-step formula for prospecting and revenue generation adapted to the modern buyer.
How can I learn more about hiring Leslie as a speaker or working with her team?
Visit www.salesledgtm.com to learn more about services and schedule time to connect.