The Power of Setting Deadlines
By: Brian Kim - October 26, 2007
Setting deadlines on our goals is something we hear we should do, but that’s about all there is to it on the subject. It’s not delved into any further.
The obvious logic behind setting deadlines is that it makes your goal seem more “real” in a sense and puts some sort of pressure on you to achieve it by the date you set. It sounds great in theory, but few will apply it.
One of the main reasons why people are hesitant to set deadlines is that they think that if they set the deadline too early, they won’t be able to achieve it by then, so in order to prevent themselves from disappointment, they don’t bother to set it at all.
If they still elect to set a deadline, they will then set it too far away, which creates too much slack in the “rope” so to speak, which then doesn’t create enough pressure to get things going which then easily leads to procrastination and nothing getting done.
If you’ve ever watched a football game, sometimes it’s painful to see the team you are NOT rooting for, get the ball in the winding minutes of the game, even if they’re losing on the scoreboard. The reason why people tend to get uneasy is that sometimes you can just “feel” the upset coming, that the team you’re going against will pull it off.
The opposing team knows about the short deadline and they feel the pressure from it, but more importantly, they know exactly what they need to do to win the game.
This is important.
This is a huge advantage to that team because early in the game, you just score as many points as you can. If you are within field goal range, you can elect to kick a field goal on 4th down and score 3 points instead of gambling and going for another 1st down or a touchdown.
But because the deadline is looming near and there’s only so much time on the clock left till the game ends, the opposing team knows exactly what they need to do and the pressure of the deadline is there to keep them alert and focused enough to do it.
If they’re down by more than 4, they know they must score a touchdown to win the game.
If they’re down by 2 or less, they know they can just get within field goal range and kick it to win the game.
If they’re down by 3, they can decide whether or not to tie it up with a field goal and slug it out in overtime or go for all the marbles to win the game.
Case in point, the deadline is there, creating the pressure to get things going.
They know exactly what they’re supposed to do.
And they know that they need to do it to order achieve their goal of winning the game.
What fuels the criteria of “need” is usually fear and the avoidance of pain. We don’t turn in our final essay in college after the deadline because we fear we won’t pass the class and we want to avoid the pain of doing just that. We turn in our taxes before the deadline so we don’t have to get a nasty letter from the IRS and pay a hefty fine. We don’t give up in the final seconds of the game because we fear losing and want to avoid the pain of doing just that.
You need a good deadline to give you enough pressure to get things going and you have to know exactly what has to be done and you have to need to do it.
If there’s a deficiency in any of these three factors, the power of the deadline loses its efficacy.
Some people set a good deadline and they know they need to do it, but they don’t know exactly what they need to do.
Classic example is: “I will get a “good” job by the end of this year.” What’s a good job exactly?
Some people will set a good deadline and know exactly what has to be done, but they don’t really need to do it so why bother doing it at all in the first place?
Some people know exactly what they have to do and they need to do it, but setting a good deadline seems to be the tricky part as it can give them so much cushion that they procrastinate or so much pressure that they collapse under it.
So how do you find that balance in terms of setting a good deadline to give you just enough pressure to get things going?
Experiment with the deadline by starting short first.
Start short. Give yourself less than what you deem as ample time. This will automatically kick your butt into gear and while you’re doing the things you need to be doing to get things going, you’ll soon get a feel of what the ideal deadline will be.
You’ll see when you go through the whole process and get a better idea of what’s realistic and what’s not and with that information, you can then slide the deadline in either direction accordingly but before you do that, stick to your original deadline.
Get as much as you can get done by then and then step back and re-evaluate things.
Look at how much you got done within that specific period of time and then using that information, set a deadline by starting short again.
Start the entire cycle again by setting a short deadline because you need that pressure to get you going and what will happen is that as time passes by, you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised at just how much you get done in so little time.
Please share and enjoy!: 
Email To A Friend Bookmark Site FREE VIP Newsletter
Read The Most Popular Articles Visit The MasterMind Forum
Similar Posts On BrianKim.net- Why The Underdog Team Pulls Off The Upset
- The Power of Enthusiasm
- How the Underdog UCLA Bruins Beat No. 18 Ranked Tennessee
- Top 10 Things You Can Learn About Life From College Football
- How to Build Momentum to Make Great Progress Toward Your Goal
- Nobody Does It Alone
- Did You Watch The UCLA vs. USC College Football Game?
- John Wooden
- The Myth of “Hard Work” = Success
- How to Get Started On Your Dream Today
Sign Up For The FREE VIP Self Improvement Newsletter To Get The VERY Best Value From This Site and Watch It Change Your Life!
Join Thousands of Subscribers From Over 107 Countries Around the World Whose Lives Have Definitely Changed for the Better And Who Are Actively Pursuing Their Hopes and Dreams!
What Subscribers Are Saying:
As a subscriber you'll get:
These M.I.Ts are purely meant to maybe provoke a thought, ask a question, make a suggestion and in the end, get you motivated and inspired to take action THAT DAY toward the direction of your dream because we all need a little boost of motivation and inspiration everyday, simply because the world is filled with such negativity and that fighting for your dreams is an uphill battle.
This VIP newsletter will contain more valuable information and resources like the articles found on this site.
And you don't have to worry about email blasting overload because I hate spam with the passion of a thousand suns put together. Your email address will not be shared with anyone else, GUARANTEED.
FREE Newsletter packed with valuable and exclusive information and resources on subjects such as success, health, wealth, relationships, time management, motivation, goal setting, and self improvement which won't be found anywhere else.
FREE eCourse - How to Maximize The Power of Your Mind - learn what you were never taught in school about how your mind works, how you can maximize its power, and how you can use it to achieve the goals you've set. The material in this eCourse can change your life.
FREE M.I.Ts - Motivational and Inspirational Thoughts sent Monday-Friday. These M.I.Ts will be personalized messages written by yours truly and will automatically be delivered to your inbox each weekday so you won't even have to think about it. It'll be right there when you wake up.
3 Responses to “The Power of Setting Deadlines”
Leave a Reply
|
|
October 26th, 2007 at
Deadlines are, indeed, very handy for most people - assuming that the “deadline” sort of thinking is consistent with their motivating factors; I would say, along with you, that most people probably do work best within that framework and if done properly it will be very beneficial. But it’s important I think to clarify that deadlines aren’t the only way to get things done in good time and they don’t work for everyone.
Deadlines have never worked for me - and it’s not that I’ve been doing them improperly all the time, whether they were given or created. That entire line of thinking just doesn’t fit within the things that motivate me most - while it’s not entirely accurate, I’ve certainly gone on record saying that my best motivators are spite and whim (for example, I’m presently learning five languages entirely on whim; and I’m doing them all well and keeping them organized namely due to spite - people saying I couldn’t do it). I find whenever I make deadlines for myself it makes me do less work than I would do otherwise - I figure I have until the deadline to do them, which I suppose is certainly a bad form of procrastination. What works best for me is having very loose parameters and just getting as much done as I can on any given day: sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less depending on what sorts of things I’m doing and a number of other factors. I suppose I have a “list of things I want to do in my life” and my life is the deadline… but it’s not at all a certain one concerning length. What has been a valuable principle I live by is packing so much into my life that I can’t possibly get it all done, that way every day I have to do as much as I can - it also gets rid of that nasty thought of regret if I were to suddenly die, because hey I’ve been doing as much as I could so what’s to regret? The fear of dying is a pretty ridiculous - and rather modern(ish) - notion that has a lot to do with the individualistic idea that we’re invincible: which, I suppose, is due to a complete disconnection from other people and thus from having any real experience with death - even when people we are supposed to care about die, it turns into a sort of self-indulgence, but then that’s another conversation altogether.
When it comes right down to it, deadline or no, people just need to grow up and learn to have a little responsibility in their lives to get the things they want done. Goals don’t just magically happen if you wish real hard or if you set a deadline, it takes a lot more work than sometimes we’re willing to accept or admit - and sometimes goals just can’t be reached because of a hindrance of some kind, perhaps in skill or in time. For example: I can draw fairly well, I was an art student for a little while and I spent a lot of time on it, but I couldn’t paint to save my life. Even if I wanted to paint really really badly, I would never be very good at it. Sometimes people have goals that they will realistically never achieve and it can be difficult to realize or accept that, especially when you have the very common idea that “everyone is excellent” or “wonderful” when it simply isn’t true - even if you really want it to be. People are simply not created equal, and that’s just a fact; some people can do certain things better than others. Now, does everyone have something they’re very good at? Maybe. But not everyone can be “excellent” at something, that cheapens the very point and idea of excellence - and against popular sway, I for one am not willing to do that: there are just more important things in the world than people’s feelings.
Dan M
October 27th, 2007 at
My experience says that some people don’t like the idea of deadline. Like you said, the stress and responsibility just isn’t their cup of tea.
Then again, if you are not comfortable with putting yourself on the line, then chances are that you’ll never push yourself to achieve your goal. There’s always a little backdoor that you have left yourself to get away with no achieving your goals.
I believe one possible way to overcome this is to focus on the positive feelings of achieving your goals instead of stress of a deadline. It’s a matter of focus in thoughts, but it makes hell lot of difference.
October 28th, 2007 at
Mr. Cheok:
It’s not so much that some people don’t like the idea of a deadline as deadlines simply don’t work as a motivating force for some people. It has nothing to do with whether or not they put themselves on the line - you can’t tell me you’re under the impression that a deadline is the only way to “put yourself on the line” in such a way that you push yourself to achieve goals - because that’s a ridiculous notion. To make this very straightforward, you can take the very general psychological idea of “left-brained” and “right-brained” tendencies: the former being more logical, rational, analytical, et cetera; the latter being more random, intuitive, subjective, et cetera. Deadlines work very well for “left-brain” tendencies, but not so much for more “right-brain” tendencies.
Of course, like all extreme definitions, people are not generally exclusively “left-brained” or “right-brained” but some mix of the two, but usually one is more dominant than the other. I, for instance, am obviously logical/analytical to some extent from my posts around this site, but in fact I would certainly say - and not alone - that my “right-brain” is the dominant one. It has nothing to do with wanting a “back-door escape”, deadlines simply do not work for me in the same way they do for perhaps more “left-brained” people. Considering this, there is really nothing to overcome, it’s simply a different way of approaching the same problem.
The paradigm of “focusing on positive feelings” may very well help for making and holding to deadlines, but there are certainly far more important motivating factors for actions than how you feel - at least, I should hope so. I’m not going to go on about the evils of feeling your way through life here unless you really want me to, but it certainly is a sort of evil and one of the most superficial types of motivation for any sort of action. (I have often had people, when they hear me say those sorts of things, say “except for relationships”, but relationships are the most dangerous places to act on feelings.) Deadlines seem far more of a hindrance for me simply because, if I’m to stick to them, they delimit what I can do in a particular amount of time. I’ll use an example from the original article to show you what I mean: an essay in university. It’s not that I ignore the deadline due to laziness, but I generally put a lot of work into my essays (dare I say more work than anyone else? Perhaps just more than most) and I take on theses that interest me - which are not usually either the given choices or the easy one. I’ve found that upon speaking with (good) professors about what I plan to do for my essay(s) they are more often than not very accommodating because it’s not often a student cares enough about their topic of study to put a serious effort into it. You have to take into account sometimes as well that if something is worthwhile enough, it’s worth losing marks to be able to do it right.
That may sound strange to the common student who is only looking for a mark - or at least cares about marks first and integrity as an after-thought - but really, marks don’t mean anything and are often antithetical to education.
Regards,
Dan M