The Mere Urgency Effect
The Mere Urgency Effect is a journal article by Meng Zhu, Yang Yang, Christopher K Hsee (2018 in its publication record; cited on IX Coach as 2021), published in Journal of Consumer Research. IX Coach's practice library cites it in 9 practices across 8 concepts; each one is listed below, so you can see exactly where this journal article is put to use.
Where to find it
Practices on IX Coach that cite The Mere Urgency Effect
- Sort tasks by the importance-urgency matrix
Classify every demand on your time by whether it is important AND/OR urgent before deciding when to do it.
Big Rocks First
- Invest at least 20% of work time in Quadrant II
Reserve meaningful time each week for activities that are important but not yet urgent.
- Default new requests to tomorrow
Unless something is genuinely urgent, new work goes to tomorrow — not today.
Do It Tomorrow, Made Practical
- Sort by urgent vs important
Ask two separate questions of every task: does it matter, and does it need to happen now?
The Eisenhower Matrix, Made Practical
- Pay yourself first — with time
Take time for what matters off the top, before the day’s demands consume it.
Four Thousand Weeks, Made Practical
- Sort by importance before urgency
Ask "does this matter for what I’m actually trying to achieve?" before asking "is this due soon?"
The Eisenhower Matrix and Delegation
- Separate urgent from important with a dedicated triage window
Give urgent-but-not-important items a contained window so they stop hijacking your Focus List time.
Warren Buffett’s Two-List Strategy
- Surface the source of urgency before accepting it
Ask whose urgency it is and whether it was created by a missing upstream action.
The Eisenhower Matrix for Teams
- Order the six tasks by genuine importance, not urgency
Rank your six tasks from most to least important — and keep that order fixed through the day.
The Ivy Lee Method, Made Practical
How this page was checked
- The citation was matched to its Crossref record, and the title, authors and year above are taken from that record — not written by us.
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