Why are we missing deadlines and how to stop it?

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

If you are saddened by the fact that you never have time to submit your work on time, then urgently read this article. We explain why missed deadlines are not your fault, and we tell you how to still meet deadlines.

I love deadlines! Especially the whistle with which they break.

Writer Douglas Adams

We all know how important planning is for effective work. Sometimes we are literally obsessed with him. But when it comes time to start implementing the list of tasks, we begin to postpone them, holding out until the last minute, or even completely disrupting the deadlines. This happens to everyone to a greater or lesser extent. And there is a justification for this, which lies in the peculiarities of our thinking.

Why are we missing deadlines?

You may have heard the history of the Sydney Opera House, which was planned to be completed in 1963 at A $ 7 million and was eventually completed only 10 years later, in 1973. In addition, the original design of the theater has undergone numerous changes, and the building has become smaller, and as a result, 102 million dollars were spent!

Designers have fallen prey to a widespread mistake: they misjudged how long a task would take. Time and again, they had to push back deadlines and change the work plan because they did not take into account the problems that affected the speed of the project.

Our thinking is structured in such a way that we plan as much time and money as is needed if everything goes according to the best scenario.

But inevitably there are obstacles on the way, as a result of which the volume of work is rapidly increasing. Then we explain the missed deadlines by the fact that unforeseen circumstances have arisen, and not by the fact that we could not take into account the possibility of their occurrence at the planning stage.

Why do we need deadlines anyway?

Strict deadlines not only constantly break down, but also bring a lot of stress to the project participants, so maybe it is better to refuse them? No. Often times, having a deadline is the only reason a job gets off the ground at all.

Previously, the word dead-line was used to describe the line around the prison, beyond which prisoners could not intercede day or night under fear of immediately getting a bullet.

Now deadlines are associated exclusively with work, and their failure does not threaten the execution of the entire department. But the essence remains the same: the deadline is life or death for your productivity or project.

The work fills the time allotted to it.

Parkinson's law

Any task will take as long as you allot to it. This is why sometimes we wonder how quickly we can get something done. For the same reason, we are often at the limit of possibilities in the last minutes to finish what was allotted for several days or even weeks.

Taking into account Parkinson's law, we understand that if we do not set the deadline for completing the task, then we will do it forever!

How to overcome constant deadlines

How to deal with bad planning and turn the presence of deadlines to your advantage? It will be very difficult, because we will have to fight the systematic errors of our thinking. But knowing how deadlines change our behavior can help us be more productive.

Bright start

When you distribute the workload over a month, a week, even a day in advance, score the beginning of the period as tightly as possible and unload the rest of the time until the deadline as much as possible.

Focus on the most difficult, important, time consuming tasks of the project first. You will still be doing them longer than you thought. Humble yourself. But thanks to your active start, at the end of the period you will have the time that you will spend on solving unplanned problems and completing tasks.

On the eve of the deadline, you do not need to dive headlong into new complex tasks, encountering pitfalls that you do not know about yet.

Additional deadline

For yourself, set a deadline a couple of days earlier than the real one. This is what marketer Matthew Guay of Zapier advises. Ideal if you don't know how much time you have from your personal deadline to your real one - one or three days. But such a situation is poorly presented. You, of course, will still remember how much time you have left, so it will take willpower so as not to disrupt your deadlines.

Come up with some kind of reward for yourself if you get the job done on the deadline. However, satisfaction from completed tasks on time will be a good reward.

Public statement

“I solemnly vow to finish the article by five in the evening” - say it not in your head, but loudly to the whole office. Now your self-esteem has come into play. What will be more painful for you: to force yourself to work actively or to miss deadlines and loudly admit your failure?

Writer Evelyn Waugh, embarking on his new novel, Return to Brideshead, publicly declared, "I'm starting a new book and I'll write it in three months." He did not meet the deadline and several times, again publicly, asked for a postponement of the deadline. Nevertheless, he finished the novel pretty quickly, because he knew that readers remember his promise and wait for it to be fulfilled.

Constant reminders of the approaching deadline

If we start working on a large project, then the time frame is usually quite long. The deadline becomes some kind of abstraction - somewhere out there, someday. The closer it is, the more clearly we realize how much time we have left, and we can more adequately compare its amount and the amount of remaining work.

Set yourself regular reminders that will constantly bring you back to reality, notifying you that day X is approaching:

• the due date will expire in a month;
• week;
• three days;
• day;
• 8 ocloc'k.

Yes, it's stressful, it'll be annoying. But maybe this is the only way to spur yourself on?

Any business always takes longer than expected, even with Hofstadter's Law.

Hofstadter's law

This comic recursive law from Douglas Hofstadter, Ph. D., speaks of the impossibility of scheduling deadlines. Deadlines are literally made to be thwarted. We hope, however, that our advice will help you avoid pushing things to the breaking point where the constant failure to meet deadlines is extremely detrimental to your working reputation and puts you in a state of constant stress.