It was Scarlett O’Hara, played by Vivien Leigh in “Gone with the Wind,” who proclaimed to Rhett Butler, played by Clark Gable, “I won’t think about that now, I’ll think about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.” 

Her procrastination is a common escape from future thinking that many of us buy into. Thinking ahead requires planning and action that may not seem important in the moment. Things that make us uncomfortable are easy to push aside in the moment, but avoidance will eventually catch up and then solutions become much more difficult to realize.

Those of us who have invested years working in busy kitchens, or for that matter, time in the classroom, know full well that a sense of urgency is an essential part of the job. Whether it’s making sure our mise en place is tight before the beginning of service or a lesson plan is built, reviewed and practiced before a lecture or demonstration. The reality is focus, determination, speed, and efficiency are our best friends. A lack of urgency when we approach these tasks will most certainly lead to disappointment at the minimum and disaster at the worst.

This urgency can be applied to nearly everything in life. In our schools, it is a focus on not just today’schallenges, the ones that are known and staring us down at the moment, but also those that, as of this moment, we find difficult to fully envision. How often do we take the Scarlett O’Hara approach when it comes to those future challenges that we might only speculate about now? How many times have we avoided the difficult planning process because it was uncomfortable? How often do we feel that sense of regret because we deferred on discussing an issue simply because it required change?

In our culinary classrooms and even more vividly when students are on internship, it is that sense of urgency that is the most critical skill. Having a sense of urgency can help our students avoid panic. “Tomorrow is another day” until tomorrow is today without planning, without expediency. We teach our students that “on time” means 15 minutes early so that they are physically, mentally, and emotionally ready through proper planning and focused energy. This is something that may not appear in a syllabi or lesson plans, but we know it is essential that we teach students to pick up the pace, learn to multitask, and work efficiently because “time is of the essence and time is money.” Shouldn’t we do the same with our time, with our faculty team, and with our administrative thinking?

“A higher rate of urgency does not imply ever-present panic, anxiety, or fear. It means a state in which complacency is virtually absent.”
– John P. Kotter, author and professor emeritus of the Harvard Business School

Food for thought.

PLAN BETTER – TRAIN HARDER AND ACT TODAY

Paul Sorgule, MS, AAC, president of Harvest America Ventures, a mobile restaurant incubator based in Saranac Lake, N.Y., is the former vice president of New England Culinary Institute and a former dean at Paul Smith’s College. Contact him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..