Constant Hurrying Wears You Down
Rushing around is not good for business or, more importantly, your peace of mind.
Posted November 25, 2025 | Reviewed by Margaret Foley
For more than a decade, I managed the national advertising program for a large life insurance company. During that time, I had an odd secret desire. I wanted to manage national advertising for a coffee company.
Why? Because I had already made up the tagline for my imaginary campaign: "The fuel of business."
The corporation I worked for (in real life, not my imagination ) had a huge headquarters with an excellent cafeteria, with its main attraction being a vast row of gleaming silver coffee machines. The result was an army of highly caffeinated business folk, buzzing around like well-dressed bees from one meeting to the next.
Energy is good, of course, but like any good thing, an excess of it can cause problems too.
A steady diet of frenetic rushing around wears you out, both mentally and physically.
Which is why Harvard Business Review 's recent " Management Tip of the Day" caught my eye. "Stop Hurrying All the Time" brought back memories of the caffeinated business world I knew so well for so many years.
In a business environment where requests may come willy-nilly from any number of people and directions, we all too often merely acquiesce without giving them critical thought. Thus, I especially liked the simple tip: " Pause before committing. Before saying yes to a request," HBR suggested, "ask: Is this mine to handle? Does it align with my goals ? Enlist a trusted person to give you feedback if needed."
Indeed, in a business setting where time is a valuable and frequently overstretched commodity, it makes no sense at all to commit yourself to a project (or even a half-hour meeting) if you don't really need to.
A second related step can help you further sort out options. " Write it down ," HBR added. "Spell out the consequences of agreeing to a request. Will it cost you more than it's worth? Seeing the trade-offs in writing can clarify your decisions."
To me, all of this makes solid, practical tactical sense.
Truth be told, I didn't always practice what I preached. I drank a fair amount of coffee myself, and at times scurried around more than I needed to. But there were a couple of strategies I adopted over the years that I felt enabled me to manage my time with at least a little less chaos.
First, time blocking—the simple act of routinely closing off a portion of one's calendar (for me, it was normally about two hours a week) was an invaluable aid to me. It was a great way to slow things down, clear my head, catch up on projects I needed to, and just generally reflect on management issues that I never seemed to have time to think about.
Second, if a decision was really important and there were gray areas of uncertainty involved— and I was not on a tight deadline requiring an immediate response—I always tried to take a night and sleep on it. It's amazing how different the same set of facts can look, given a little time, perspective, and rest.
Naturally, you always want to make the most thoughtful decisions you can, especially in management roles.
You don't want to succumb to "paralysis by analysis," as the saying goes, but when it comes to a decision that may have far-reaching financial and human consequences, you don't want to rush it either.
You want to give it your very best unhurried thought.
Wiens, K. (November 16, 2025). "Stop Hurrying All the Time." Harvard Business Review . HBR Management Tip of the Day.
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Victor Lipman, MBA, is author of The Type B Manager: Leading Successfully in a Type A World . His online courses on Udemy are "The Manager's Mindset" and "How to Manage Difficult Employees."
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.