What's Your Deadline?

Prioritizing your projects with one simple question

Many of us have the joy — or perhaps stress — of wearing many hats. We’re not only communicators but we’re also expected to be photographers, social media managers, writers, graphic designers, website administrators, data analysts...the list could go on forever. Not only that, but we might be the only ones at our organizations with those specific skill sets.

While most of us would love to master one of our many skills rather than settling for second best in all of them, the only thing we really need to master, arguably, is managing and prioritizing projects as they are thrown at us.

The advantage of wearing 20,381,018 hats is you become pretty knowledgeable in a variety of areas. Once word of your diverse skill set spreads, however, people begin needing a piece of your time or expertise in one or all of those 20,381,018 areas. This is where you make it or break it as a time management expert.

Many of our schedules probably ebb and flow. We have busier times of the month or year and also times we are able to catch our breath a little. Whether we have the capacity to complete a new project or not, our first question should always be “What’s your deadline?”

“Lack of planning on your part..."

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.” This has a legitimate place in every office, everywhere. At some point in all of our careers, we have been forced to hit pause on a pretty important project to tend to someone else’s “emergency”. But I suspect asking the question “What’s your deadline?” reveals some emergencies aren’t actually emergencies at all.

One thing I have learned when asking this question is that those asking you to complete a project typically haven‘t thought about when exactly their deadlines are — understandable if they don’t work in the world of deadlines, like most communicators do. They, like us, live in a world of instant gratification, which presents itself in the workplace as “drop everything and do it now.” But most of the time, that isn’t actually the case. There’s nothing wrong with asking “When do you need this?” And there’s also nothing wrong with suggesting a different time frame because you’ve already prioritized other projects. Here’s how that conversation might look:

Colleague: “Hey, can you create a landing page with a sign-up form, then design an email that directs customers to the landing page?”

Me: “Sure! When would you like the email to be sent?”

Colleague: “Friday should work.”

Me: “Hmm. My magazine deadline is Friday, so I will be swamped between now and then. How about next Tuesday?” Colleague (usually): “That’s completely fine.”

By stating what the more important priority is, you not only establish that you are committed to the primary responsibilities of your job, but you are also telling others that it takes time, focus and mental energy to create something from nothing. They learn that not only are you creating an email or designing a landing page, you are also researching best practices in communications trends for the prescribed audience and turning a blank page into something that inspires action.

What hopefully will happen is the next time your colleagues need you to complete a project, they will remember and appreciate the effort you put into ensuring each task is done well, and they’ll get their projects on your radar long before they are actually needed.

The two-minute rule

On the other hand, someone might ask you to do something that will take you only a few minutes. Author and productivity consultant David Allen writes in his best-selling book Getting Things Done “If it takes less than two minutes, then do it now.”

Research has shown that if you do have tasks to complete that will take you two minutes or less (i.e. respond to a simple email, setting up a calendar invite, etc.), it is better for you to interrupt your current workflow, complete the task, then get back to your work. Completing brief tasks doesn’t take energy away from your projects — it’s larger, more complex things like agreeing to a brand new project when you should be working on your current one, or responding to an email that will first require you to research a specific topic or idea.

Who’s asking?

Who is needing a project from you might be more important than what that project is. Don’t do something dumb like tell your boss or CEO to “get in line.” You’ll likely be able to gauge the urgency of their needs pretty quickly, but you can still ask them to clarify their deadlines so you know exactly where in your queue to place their requests. They may not intend for you to drop what you’re doing and serve their needs immediately, although that might be our natural inclination due to their roles or titles.

Simply asking “What’s your deadline?” helps keep everyone on the same page. Clarity is key to keeping our sanity in a world of many hats.

Remember, the ultimate goal of keeping this tool in your arsenal and using it often is to ensure your long list of projects and tasks stays manageable. If you have trouble finding a system that works for you, check out my posts, Time Budgeting Part 1 and Part II, which offer practical ways you can stay on top of all of your lists — hint: don’t underestimate the power of a good old fashioned planner.

It’s also our hope that asking this question makes our processes more efficient, so we spend less time juggling multiple projects at once and stressing about the results, and more time improving the quality of our work. And the more quality work we can produce in less time, the more time we have for the things that truly fill us.

All of this ties so well to this entire project’s mission to help readers create time for what matters most. I genuinely hope that these small bits of advice will lead to you discovering that the time we are given is a blessing, and we were not created to spend it bogged down in stressful work, but to use it for good — whatever that looks like for you. Being able to manage your time and projects well puts you one step closer to the true mission and purpose of your life.

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Be well, friends, and remember to create time for what matters most!