Do not call something urgent simply because you waited too long to ask.

Delay on your side does not create an emergency on anyone else’s. When a request arrives marked urgent because it sat with you for three weeks, the cost of your timing is quietly transferred to whoever receives it. People spot the pattern fast, and they respond by treating all your urgency as background noise. The word stops working once it is used for your own scheduling.

When you are late in asking, say so: this is late from me, here is the real deadline, tell me what is possible. Keep the word urgent for the things that genuinely are.