How to resist urgency culture at work

Using somatics and tarot to slow down when work is moving too fast

We've all been there: the frantic Slack message at the end of the day, the last-minute meeting to discuss something “time-sensitive,” the project that gets killed before it's even fully off the ground because it just wasn't showing results quickly enough.

Urgency is the constant rhythm of corporate culture. Everything is critical. Everything needs to happen now. And when everything is urgent, it's hard to tell the difference between something that actually needs your immediate attention and something that simply feels like it does.

The result? We're exhausted, overwhelmed, and often not even doing better work.

You can find plenty of articles, podcasts, and social media posts offering advice for responding to workplace urgency and preventing burnout. Some of that advice is genuinely useful. Some of it, though, amounts to teaching you how to manage your burnout so you can keep being productive.

That's not what I'm interested in.

The point of resisting urgency isn't to become a more efficient worker bee for our late-stage capitalist system. It's to give yourself enough space to workwith more intentionality, listen to your own wisdom, and move at a pace that actually feels sustainable in your body.

So if you're looking for an approach to resisting urgency culture that starts with your body—not just your productivity system—read on.  

Resisting urgency culture: the system and the individual

How do you opt out of urgency? Can you? 

First, let's acknowledge something important: urgency is a systemic problem, and it requires systemic solutions. You cannot breathe, journal, set boundaries, or pull enough tarot cards to single-handedly dismantle a workplace culture built around exploitation and constant productivity.

And it really sucks that so much of the responsibility for navigating that culture gets placed on individual workers.

But I'm a career coach, so my work is with individuals. And I believe that even within systems we didn't create, we have some agency over how we relate to ourselves and the world around us.

That doesn't mean you can control your boss, your company's expectations, or the economic system you work within. It means there may be places where you can choose a different response.

Sometimes that response is a boundary. Sometimes it's a conversation. Sometimes it's looking for another job. And sometimes it's simply noticing: This feels urgent. But is it actually urgent?

That tiny bit of space between stimulus and response can be surprisingly powerful.

Why “set better boundaries” isn’t a silver bullet

A lot of advice about resisting urgency culture boils down to: set better boundaries.

Say no to work you don't have time for. Block off your calendar. Delegate. Don't answer Slack after hours.

Look, boundaries are great. I'm not here to argue against setting them.

But “just set better boundaries” is easy advice to give and much harder advice to follow.

You can know intellectually that you don't need to answer that message immediately and still feel an almost irresistible pull to respond.

You can put “focus time” on your calendar and then move it the second someone says, “But this report really is urgent.”

That's because urgency isn't just a thought. It's an embodied experience.

If all you needed was the right mindset, you'd already be setting boundaries like a champ.

But many of us have learned, over years of working in productivity-obsessed environments, to associate constant responsiveness with being safe, valuable, responsible, or good at our jobs.

So when we try to slow down, something in us may protest.

What if they think I'm lazy?

What if I'm missing something?

What if I disappoint someone?

What if this really is urgent?

That reaction is worth getting curious about.

Resisting urgency culture: a somatic approach

Since urgency is a bodily experience, let’s explore a somatic approach. By somatic, I just mean “related to the body.” Getting curious about how urgency is showing up in your body might offer you better insight into what you need to slow down and still feel safe. 

Let’s try a simple exercise:

Step 1: Recall a recent moment at work where you felt some urgency. On a scale of 1-10, let’s pick something at a 4 or 5 urgency level. No need to trigger more anxiety than necessary.  

Step 2: Notice how your body feels as you call up this memory. Are you tense? Is your heart rate elevated? How’s your breathing? Do you feel pressure anywhere in your body? Temperature changes, like feeling flushed or getting chills? What does it feel like to believe that you need to move quickly? 

Why should I do this? Dropping into your somatic experience of urgency helps you recognize the ways that your body communicates stress and overwhelm to you. It’s easy to bypass our feelings and go straight to the story (“This is urgent - must respond now”). When we can slow down enough to notice how our bodies talk to us, we’re making it possible to change our patterns. 

Step 3: As you stay with the experience, notice how you can invite some slowness in. Maybe you take a few deep breaths. You could slowly scan your environment and name three things you can see that bring a smile to your face. If movement feels good, try moving as slowly as possible. 

Why should I do this? By staying with experience, you’re teaching your nervous system that the feeling of urgency isn’t a problem that needs an immediate response. Even when things feel urgent, you can stay with yourself and choose to move at your own pace instead of taking swift action.

Step 4: Check back in with your body. What’s shifted for you? The goal isn't necessarily to make the sensation of urgency disappear. The goal is to notice it without automatically obeying it. You might still feel your heart beating faster. You might still feel the impulse to act. But now there's a little more space between I feel urgency and I must act urgently. That space is where choice lives. 

After a somatic practice, I recommend taking some time to reflect on what you’ve learned from the experience and how you can carry that new knowing into your daily life. Tarot is a great tool for this work. 

Resisting urgency culture: a tarot reflection

After the somatic practice, give yourself a few minutes to journal about what you noticed. Then, if tarot is part of your practice, grab your deck.

I use tarot not because I think the cards can tell us exactly what to do, but because they can help us access perspectives we might not reach through analytical thinking alone.

And that's especially useful when we're talking about urgency.

Urgency tends to narrow our field of vision. What do I need to do? How quickly can I do it? What happens if I don't?

Tarot can invite a different set of questions: What am I not seeing? What happens if I pause? What else is possible? What does my own wisdom have to say about this?

Rather than pulling cards completely at random, here are three cards from the tarot deck that I think offer an especially useful anti-urgency perspective.

Cards + journal prompts:

The Hanged Man — Pause

Journal prompt:
When I give myself permission to pause, what new possibilities become visible?

Knight of Pentacles — Pace

Journal prompt:
When do I find myself taking on someone else's sense of urgency? What would it look like to move at my own pace instead?

Four of Swords — Rest

Journal prompt:
What would it mean to let rest be part of my work rhythm rather than a reward for finishing?

You don't have to answer urgency with urgency

Resisting urgency culture doesn't mean you'll never have to move quickly. Sometimes your boss really does need something today. Sometimes the deadline isn't negotiable.

The goal isn't to move slowly all the time. The goal is to be able to tell the difference between actual urgency and the feeling of urgency, and to have enough space to choose your response.

Your body can help you notice when you're activated. Tarot can help you ask questions you might otherwise skip over. And coaching can help you explore what becomes possible when you stop automatically organizing your career around other people's expectations.

You don't have to absorb someone else's urgency just because they're feeling it.

You can pause.

You can listen.

You can choose.

And sometimes, you can decide that the thing that felt like an emergency five minutes ago can wait.