Apr 27, 2021
Deadlines are meaningless
Here’s how to deal with them, like a Pro
Deadlines are designed to kick progress into gear. More often than not, they mean very little beyond that.
I hope this short post empowers you to deal with deadlines in a pragmatic way.
That old chestnut
Here's an example of a common deadline you’ve probably faced before…
You visit an online store, add something to your basket, and at some point decide to leave without completing your purchase.
All of a sudden a magic email appears in your inbox, saying something like:
Hey friend, complete your order within 24 hours and you’ll get 15% off!
Wow, so generous. But not really.
You were set an elaborate deadline to pay for stuff within a fixed time period, and ONLY if you did that, would you be eligible for a discount which you didn’t even know existed.
Perhaps at this point, you feel a sense of urgency to complete your shop. Perhaps not.
Either way, I bet you could still get that 15% off without checking out on time — try calling the Customer Support team, saying something like:
“Hey, I received a 15% off code in my email, to complete my shop within 24 hours, but I missed it!
I would love to buy stuff from your store and still benefit from this offer.
Would it be totally out of the question to give me a new code so that I can checkout today instead?”
Validate deadlines by asking questions
A similar concept applies in business. Someone high above sets a deadline for you or your team, to deliver something by a fixed date.
All of a sudden you go into panic-planning mode and start worrying about how you’ll get everything done on time. Maybe you’re worried about resourcing, or perhaps there’s a missing set of skills that need more time to be acquired.
Whatever it might be, ask yourself this:
“What's going to happen if we don’t meet this deadline?”
Do even better. Ask that and some of these other questions in response to the ‘deadline creator’, as soon as they set you your target:
“What makes it important for us to meet this deadline?”
“It sounds like our organizational strategy will be compromised if we go over by a day?”
“How do we recover from the failure of not delivering on time?”
“Where do we see ourselves immediately after this has been delivered?”
This isn’t a Jedi mind trick. These questions are designed to provoke legitimate thought, and get you a meaningful response.
You might get back a response of:
“Okay, we’re somewhat flexible on delivery time but we’d like to aim for this date because of XYZ”.
That itself will give you more insight than you may have had at the start of the conversation.
More importantly, panic-planning now has the opportunity to transform into pragmatic-planning.
Conclusion — deadlines are meaningless until they’re not
Real deadlines are unearthed, when we understand the true motivations and implications driving them.
Some deadlines are easier to understand than others, probably because you know what’s going to happen if you do meet them and what’s going to happen if you do not.
Without this clarity, you have a meaningless date to work towards.
So go ahead and provoke thought like a Pro. Ask questions. Seek meaning. Feel good about it!
