When we talk about any business management or our day to day daily life, meeting deadline is the most important aspect. Deadlines are defined as an optimum amount of time required to complete a certain task. Setting deadlines for every task will help you to keep things organized. It also helps in increasing the productivity of the organization.
We all know the importance of meeting deadlines but sometimes we fail to meet it. This is mainly because of our casual habits. But if we start taking timeline seriously then we will start giving value to the assigned task.
Causes of missing deadlines
- The main reason behind this is your casual habits. Everybody likes to live in their own comfort zone. But the fact is comfort zone will make you discomfort in the end.
- Lack of time management skills. You started late and finally missing deadlines.
- Poor management skills. You do not have the proper planning and guidelines.
- You are already dealing with backlogs.
- Having fear of failure.
- Lack of resources available.
Steps to meet deadlines
1. Have a clear mindset
- Take all deadlines seriously and respect them. Because investing your time means that you are adding value to it.
- Direct all your energy on the current task. This will make you clear and you will not get blocked.
- Make a deadline your first priority. Take the help of various application to keep highlighting the due date.
- Be aware of your comfort zone and casual habits.
- Don’t allow yourself to procrastinate due to distractions like managing phone calls, emails, etc.
2. Effective planning
- If you do not plan effectively then make sure that you will definitely fail at meeting deadlines.
- First, you need to form to-do-list and prioritize your task.
- After prioritizing, you need to schedule your task.
- You need to plan each and every step so that everything is visible to you.
3. Do not overcommit
- You should be very clear about the time required to complete any task. Establish a realistic timeline.
- Try to set soft deadlines to avoid pressure and maintaining the quality of the output.
- You should be well aware of available resources required in accomplishing the task.
- Do not build a gap between your will and skill. You need to analyze yourself.
4. Take help from past data
- Making deadlines is not an easy task. It requires analysis of tangible as well as intangible factors.
- You need to be aware of midpoints i.e. obstacles should be clearly visible. These midpoints may allow you to procrastinate your task.
- You should take the help of past data to form a deadline. Use your past experience to evaluate your planning.
- Take feedback so that it will be helpful in the future.
5. Break deadline into milestones
- Break the whole task into a series of smaller deliverables.
- Set a timeline for each deliverable. Here you need to clearly define the start time and the finish time.
- Try to work on short term objective rather working on long term.
6. Keep track of everything
- When you are working alone try to talk to yourself. This will help you to be alert about the deadlines.
- When you are working in a team, build a strong communication among your subordinates to avoid missing deadlines.
- Keep a reminder to know the remaining task and time needed to complete it.
- At the end of the day again go through the to-do-list and mark the task completed and plan for the next day.
