Deadlines

I was reflecting that I've heard you ask me once or twice "what is the deadline for task X"?

I can see that you are driven and respond well to challenges and deadlines. That's great. Really great!

Now I have new challenge for you. The challenge is to move from a deadline mindset to a "flow" mindset. I'm not saying you are stuck in a mindset at all. I want to highlight a way if thinking that I find useful and I hope you do too.

There will always be deadlines. If a task has a deadline, of course I will let you know. I tend however only to work with deadlines that are real. I rarely give deadlines that are self-imposed. Certain things needed to happen by a certain time. Real deadlines for real reasons. For most things though if I set a deadline it would be made up.

Let's talk instead about flow. Flow for me is about having an optimal and predictable regular delivery of value. I've come to like designing processes where we limit the number of things that we focus on things at one time. Why? Because I've observed that the fewer things someone has to do at once the faster they do them. Do less to do more.

The key then is to always ask, what am I already working on that I can finish next? Finish it and once it's finished only then take on a new task. I find I have more predictable delivery.

Then, the second element to a flow method is to make sure that you have a really good understanding of the relative importance of the things on your "to do" list. This can be something you do yourself if you really understand what you are doing in relation to your contribution to the whole organisation. If not, that's where you might need a regular discussion on what's important and why.

There's really only two dimensions of importance; urgency and value. It's obvious that you should do low urgency and low value items last and high urgency high value items first. The more difficult questions are around high urgency low value and low urgency high value. That discussion is never black and white but I'd recommend always focussing on value first unless it's a small effort item and avoid urgency demands by planning ahead.

Anyway, my point is that if you limit the number of things you work on at any one time, consistently finish work in progress before adding new tasks and then always start new tasks based on importance we don't need to use deadlines to deliver great results.

Deadlines are often self imposed. They are useful to many if us because it releases us from the decisions around what to do and what to do next. If you rely on a deadline from your manager instead of figuring it out yourself, you have created a burden for your manager to carry that you could carry yourself.

Real deadlines are real. If there's a deadline I will use the term as it really should be used. For everything else, I believe focussing on flow leads to better results, less supervision and more ownership. Maybe you already knew all of this so forgive me if that's the case.

• Limit work in progress
• Finish before starting
• Deliver regularly and repeatedly
• Start based on importance
• Only use deadlines if they really exist

It's a formula which really works.