Deadline: what does it mean and how to comply with it

Deadline - translation?

The word Deadline comes from the English Deadline , which literally translates as “ dead” + “line”, that is, “ absolutely, tightly” + “line, border”.

From such a categorical combination of two words, it becomes clear that we are talking about the “ deadline ” , “ extreme line ” , the “ dead line ” beyond which one cannot go.

What causes deadlines to be missed?

Missing a deadline is often due to personal reasons. And they can be very diverse. For example, illness, reluctance to do it ahead of schedule, laziness and much more.

Having understood the reasons, you can understand how to meet deadlines when resolving work issues or implementing urgent projects.

According to the expert opinion of Richard Boyatzis, great stress with limited time closes a person to find ways to solve problems. Showing unconventional thinking in such situations is virtually impossible.

In what areas is the term Deadline used?

Advertising often uses a limited offer period. This encourages the client to make a purchasing decision faster. Advertisers call this offer: an offer with a deadline.
In the field of project management, Deadline is perhaps the most popular word because projects usually have an implementation plan that the entire team follows. This plan includes Deadlines for both intermediate tasks and the final Deadline for delivery of the project to the Customer (for example, development and delivery of software to the Customer).
For journalists, deadlines are usually periodic. For example, every Monday a journalist must submit material (an article) for publication.
In business, Deadlines can be urgent or gradual. An urgent Deadline often involves double payment to company employees, as it is due to the fact that the order must be completed as quickly as possible. A phased Deadline involves breaking down a large task into subtasks. Management controls the implementation of intermediate tasks.
in sports , such as the deadline before which a player can transfer to another football team.
We can say that the term Deadline is applicable to absolutely all areas of activity . When we make our list of personal goals , we also indicate deadlines. And if a goal does not have a deadline, then it is not a goal, but a dream.

If a goal does not have a deadline (=deadline), then it is not a goal, but a dream

The Power of Organizing Factor Deadline

The deadline strategy is often used in sports. For example, in bodybuilding or athletics. To participate in the competition, you must submit your application on time and pay the service fee. Or in football, after the end of the transfer period, the coaching staff is given only a month to conduct transactions for the resale and acquisition of football players.

The same picture can be observed during the Hollywood Film Festival, where young directors are given a chance to prove themselves by creating a short film. Only here, too, the deadline for submitting an application with a copy of the work is limited. Everything depends on the deadline.

Whether it is an intermediate or a final time frame, it is used by all people planning their goals. Only now they call it firmly the final deadline. Although our cherished word borrowed from the Americans also applies here. Dates and times are respected even by those who do not have a direct manager or customer setting deadlines.

Deadlines are used in all areas of human life, for example:

doctors prescribe timing of the operation, after which any intervention by the surgeon will not make sense;
teachers give a certain number of days or hours to write coursework, essays, presentations, answer exam questions, etc.;
officials talk about specific deadlines for implementing the bill or submitting documents.

If the agreed time is ignored, then all the work will be done in vain. And this is quite logical. If a passenger who bought a ticket for 12:00 is late and arrives at the station at 12:05, then no one is to blame. We'll have to wait for the next one, because the train just left on schedule. All that remains is to blame yourself for lack of composure, irresponsibility, lack of punctuality, having experienced considerable stress.

And such emotional discomfort is experienced by anyone who does not know how to properly manage their time, organize their work productively, and ignore the deadline. If all logisticians and airport dispatchers worked without set deadlines, then this could develop into at least a mess, and at most into a disaster.

I recommend reading Tom DeMarco's novel Deadline

This is a novel about project management. If you want to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of project management, want to understand what it means from the inside to work on large projects, in IT companies, if you dream of working as a project manager or business analyst, or are already working in this field, be sure to read this novel.

I myself worked on large projects and I can say that the author very realistically managed to convey the atmosphere of the project, the atmosphere of life in a state of constant Deadlines!

The book can be read online for free. Here is the link:

You can quickly familiarize yourself with the book directly in the article:

What is a “deadline on fire”?

“The deadline is on fire” means that the deadline for submitting the work is already very tight. Therefore, there is a possibility that you may not be able to finish it on time. And this, in turn, may be fraught with consequences specified in the contract.

Therefore, in order not to fall under the sanctions of your contract, you must have time to do everything on time. Therefore, you have to work in irregular hours, perhaps 20 hours a day, and so on for the entire time until the deadline arrives. Therefore, the expression “deadline is on” has 2 meanings:

the deadline is on - it means that the employee is running out of time;
The deadline is on - it means that there is no need to distract the employee from his main work, since he does not have time.

Where is deadline used?

In the modern world, there are many areas of activity in which deadlines are constantly applied. These include:

Job. Especially the office one. Being able to set a strict deadline for your subordinates and monitor its obligatory compliance is one of the important qualities of a modern leader.
Business. In business, deadlines are more important than anywhere else. The basis of any business is customer trust, which can only be earned if you provide high-quality and timely services. In this case, the deadline is a simple and convenient tool for monitoring timeliness.
Freelancing (i.e. the field of activity of specialists with a free schedule). A deadline for a freelancer is one of the mandatory components of the work process. Anyone who approaches a freelancer with an order sets a deadline by which the order must be completed.
Programming _ This word is especially popular among programmers: almost everyone among them knows what a deadline is. The reason is that most of the work that programmers do is large-scale, and it is most convenient to use a strict deadline to complete it on time.

What to do if you don't meet the deadline?

The best way to satisfy your clients or bosses is to always meet deadlines. But sometimes unexpected complications arise: projects take longer than you expected, or life circumstances that are beyond your control interfere with your clearly planned schedule.

So what do you do when a deadline looms... and you definitely need some extra time?

Notify your boss or clients (and do it as early as possible)

Photo pixabay.com

Have the terms of the project changed or has it expanded? If at some stage you clearly understand that you won’t make it in time, you don’t need to remain silent about it. The best time to notify clients or bosses that you need more time is as soon as the reasons for the need for a delay become clear - this way everyone will know exactly why you need additional time.

When you are asked to add something to it while completing a task, a simple cause-and-effect relationship is triggered (“ Great, I can include this in the project, but it will add X number of days to my estimated deadline - is this normal?”

But if the project has not changed significantly since you took on it, and you simply realized that you incorrectly correlated the scope and your capabilities, or some kind of emergency has arisen in your personal life, notifying about this as early as possible will be an indicator your respect for the customer or superiors and adequacy in assessing the situation.

Be honest

Being honest is sometimes difficult, but you need to do it for the sake of your professional reputation. However, being honest about exactly why you're behind schedule doesn't mean you have to go into tedious, self-flagellating detail. Honest explanations of why you are requesting an extension may include phrases such as:

“[This project] requires more research than I initially expected.”

“I find it a little more difficult than we thought.”

“[This project] is different from [other projects I've done] because of the [special feature]—it will unfortunately add some extra steps to my workflow.”

If a true emergency is causing the delay, be honest about that too. Again, you don't have to try to gain empathy or go into all the details.

People understand that life doesn't always prioritize professional schedules, so using neutral phrases like "family emergency"

,
"illness"
or
"equipment failure"
. Be prepared to be more specific if asked, but generally most clients or bosses won't do this.

Set clear new deadlines

Even the most patient and understanding client will be unhappy when asked to extend a deadline without a new deadline in the near future.

Whenever you politely request an extension, offer a specific new completion date. Keep in mind that you are essentially asking for a favor, and this may mean offering a date to speed up your workflow.

Once you've set a new deadline, consider yourself practically making a blood oath that everything will be done by that date - don't expect any more delays and don't relax: your reputation is on the line.

Author: Maria Minaeva

Cons of a deadline

Now let's look at some negative factors that may arise when using a deadline:

Stress . A deadline does not always imply a comfortable amount of time for the performer. Sometimes you have to work very quickly, and perhaps even sacrifice sleep time, as most students do. Of course, this is a lot of stress, but even more stress is missing a deadline.
Deterioration in quality. A quality problem can also arise due to insufficient time to fully complete a task. In this case, an unnecessarily tight deadline will do more harm than good.
Rush. Guessing the ideal time for completing a task is almost impossible, and therefore the deadline can provoke a rush if there is not enough time. Moreover, there may be cases when the deadlines are disproportionate to the assigned tasks, and their completion on time may not be feasible.

Even though there are certain disadvantages, the use of a deadline is gaining popularity all over the world every year.

How did the word deadline come about?

In the modern world, every year more and more importance is attached to the timely completion of assigned tasks. Often the profit of the enterprise, the reputation of the company, and the guarantee of profit can depend on this. That is why modern society began to need a short but very precise term that would express the essence of the maximum possible deadline , which is unacceptable to step over.

In recent years, the word “deadline” has been used as this term, which literally translated from English means “dead line”. This term very accurately designated a time limit beyond which it is unacceptable to go , and in the modern world it has become very popular, growing every year.

Is it possible to learn to do everything on time?

In business slang, phrases called “Runglish” are often used. In one sentence, office workers skillfully combine English and Russian words. Similar expressions include “failing the deadline,” which means submitting an order later than the set time. The reason for this is impunity, because a “crime” is not always followed by punishment. The management is simply putting the brakes on everything. But everyone can learn to do everything on time.

What should a manager do if employees miss deadlines?

Missing deadlines is an unpleasant thing. If an employee starts working on a project the night before the deadline, he won’t get anything done. But in freelancing, remote work, and even sometimes in the office, employees have no time for the boss’s problems. They want to go out and have fun, not work on their days off. So what should have been done a week ago? I'm a free person, I can afford it. That is why, if employees often miss deadlines, something needs to be done about it. And dismissal is not always the most effective solution.

First you need to talk to the employee. Many people miss deadlines because of their laziness, but there are also cases when personal circumstances interfere with work. You need to talk to the employee and find out the reasons. This could be burnout, overload from other tasks, unmotivated salary, uncomfortable conditions, unpleasant colleagues and much more. It’s better to find out the reason right away and then decide something specific.

The first important argument in a conversation with an employee who misses deadlines without a good reason is to talk about the consequences of missing deadlines. A trivial example: a company entered into an agreement to create websites. It clearly states that if this is not done within a certain time frame, the company will be subject to fines. Plus a tarnished reputation.

Life example. When I worked with a web studio, there was one programmer who was making a mobile application. He did practically nothing in a month, and because of him, the manager, designer and a couple of other people had to work for free for two weeks. Simply because they missed the deadlines, and the payment was for the fact of completing the work. It dawned on the guy that missing deadlines was not cool only after he was told what problems other people had because of him.

If the employee is important and you want to help him, talk to him about the distribution of his working hours. What tools does he use, recommend others, tell us about your personal experience. But this should not be done in the manner of “I’ll show you how to do it now.”

When talking to an employee, you need to clearly outline all expectations regarding his work and deadlines. If he continues to systematically violate them, a more drastic decision must be made. The easiest way is dismissal. But if this is a valuable personnel whose head is working in the right direction, it may be worth transferring him to another position or giving him a less complex task.

Most often, employees are to blame for problems with missed deadlines. Especially if it's remote work or freelancing. This is a separate way of life that reduces the sense of responsibility. No matter how much I would like to, it is best to part with such people.

The benefits and harms of setting deadlines

Deadlines have both pros and cons. First the positives:

The project is broken down into many smaller tasks. This is the basic principle that most managers follow. The people supervising the project monitor each stage, issue new tasks and check the completion of each previous stage. This immediately allows you to reduce the level of stress from the complexity of the task (after all, you have to perform only small steps) and control the stages, preventing strong deviations from the planned schedule.
Focus on a specific task. If work doesn't have a deadline, it drags on for a long time. This is noticeable in areas where it is not particularly important in what time the task will be completed. As an example - website promotion. There is a team of authors and a large block of tasks. If you don't set deadlines, people will delay submitting work for weeks instead of one or two days.
Mobile project and human resource management. To solve a problem at different stages, different specialists may be required. Somewhere you need a programmer, somewhere a layout designer, somewhere you need the help of a designer or staff writer. But they don't always need to work on one specific project all the time. It is setting deadlines and breaking them down into smaller tasks that allows you to transfer workers between projects and occupy their time completely.
Motivation. This is a purely individual thing, but in most cases it works this way: if a person cannot meet a deadline on time, he will feel discomfort and stress. If he closes it on time, he will consider himself a hero. But this is a twofold situation; let’s look at another example in the minuses.

Now let's move on to the cons. They depend on both the employer and the employee.

Stress. This is a negative motivation factor. Some people, if they miss a deadline through their own fault, can become very nervous about it. After a couple of failures, such an employee may go into deep depression and stop doing what he was previously good at.
Waste of time and money. If the deadline is set incorrectly, the customer will receive the work after the deadline. This is a mistake both of the contractor, because he did not make it on time, and of the customer, because he did not take into account additional risks.

The disadvantages are largely related to either incorrect deadlines or missed deadlines. The deadlines themselves are a really necessary thing. Allows you to control the work process and intervene when something does not go according to plan. Despite this, you need to learn to work with people, give them the right deadlines and do everything on time.

Personal example. I have a friend who works in a small web studio. Almost only newbies work there, and only managers are truly experienced guys who have already completed dozens of orders before joining the company. Almost every project has missed deadlines. And sometimes even several months behind the plan. This situation puts all employees under stress, from which they have to get out of it on their own. Although, in fact, this is just a management mistake.