Deadlines Matter

One of the advantages of hard deadlines is that they serve as a barometer to sort our priorities—what is more important than something else. Hard deadlines are the non-negotiable targets that are usually imposed from outside of you and create clarity about what is necessary for you to do NOW. However, when you don’t have impending hard deadlines staring you in the face, the accompanying barometer for what is important is lessened also.

Without Deadlines

If you don’t have hard deadlines, what happens? This was part of a recent coaching call I had with a tax manager. She admitted to constantly being distracted from the important work she needed to get done. She has a significant number of extensions in front of her, but fortunately, the deadlines aren’t until September and October. Her complaint was that, at the end of the day, she didn’t get much done because she pulled off to take care of other things. A credit to her honesty, she admitted that most of the other things weren’t as important as what she should have been working on.

From my coaching experience, without deadlines, we more easily lose focus about what is really important and are seduced to the next barometer—which is immediacy. Imagine you are at your desk and you have some important work to complete, but there is no hard deadline. Then something comes along that isn’t as important but has an immediacy factor related to it. If you aren’t paying attention, your reactive self will direct you to put down what is important and take up the less important thing.

Impact of Immediacy

As an example, assume you are working on a client project and your email dings. You look up to see who it’s from and what it’s about. If it’s something you can respond to quickly or you determine that a rapid response would be appreciated, you will likely reply. The problem is that, while you may not realize it, the distraction took your conscious self away from what was important. It will take a number of minutes to regain the level of concentration you were at before the interruption. At the end of a long day and after a number of “immediacies,” you wonder what you did all day because you have very little to show for it.

If you don’t have imminent deadlines in place, I encourage you to set them for yourself and your team to ensure you get important work done. You will find that productivity will increase, and you will not experience the compression that comes as hard deadlines approach. Remember, not immediacy, but importance.