Urgent and loud are not the same thing. Urgent means the situation requires immediate attention because delay will cause a real problem. Loud means the communication is arriving with high frequency, high volume, or high emotional intensity.
Loud things feel urgent. They are not always urgent.
How to tell the difference
Ask: "What happens if I respond to this in four hours instead of four minutes?" If the answer is "a real problem occurs," it is urgent. If the answer is "the sender will be frustrated," it is loud.
Frustration is not a crisis. It is a feeling. It can be managed. A real problem — a deadline missed, a client waiting, a system down — is different.
The urgency inflation problem
When everything is marked urgent, nothing is urgent. The "high importance" flag in email exists to signal genuine urgency. When it is used for every email, it loses its meaning. Recipients learn to ignore it. When a genuinely urgent email arrives with the flag, it is treated like all the others.
Reserve urgency signals for genuinely urgent situations. This preserves their effectiveness.
The loud sender
Some people communicate at high volume by default. Every email is urgent. Every request is time-sensitive. Every follow-up arrives within the hour. This is a communication style, not an accurate representation of the situation.
Once you recognize a loud sender, you can calibrate your response accordingly. Not by ignoring them — by applying your own assessment of the actual urgency rather than accepting theirs.
The genuinely urgent situation
When something is genuinely urgent, email is often the wrong channel. Email is asynchronous. It is checked at intervals. A genuinely urgent situation requires a synchronous channel: a phone call, a direct message, a tap on the shoulder.
If you need an immediate response, do not send an email and then follow up asking why you have not received a response. Use a channel that is designed for immediate communication.
The calibration: Before marking something urgent, ask whether it actually is. Before responding to something marked urgent, ask the same question. Your assessment and the sender's assessment may differ. Both are worth considering.