Deadlines
Note 014: Responsibility
Ever have that horrible, gnawing, anxious feeling that there is simply too much to do, there is no possible way to meet your deadlines?
That you need to call in sick?
Make an excuse?
Fake an incident?
Plead for an extension?
Break down?
Bury yourself in your doona?
Blame your coworkers / consultants / weather / software /wifi / parents / weather?
Give up?
Me too.
Deadlines
Unfortunately I am not going to give us all an out here - you must meet your deadlines.
We can frame this through every topic we have covered so far: your reputation, positive network effects, marketing, leadership, contractural obligations, professionalism - cashflow!
But there is meta-reason that you must meet your deadlines to ensure success:
Internal
The world is actually very ready to let you off the hook for your 1,000 good reasons to get out of your obligations, because that is the way a lot of the world operates.
If you hold yourself truly accountable, internally, to a standard beyond what is generally acceptable, you will be amazed at what can be accomplished over time as you develop this habit - and you will not accept excuses from yourself.
How you do one thing, is how you do everything. Meet your deadlines. Now.
Now get back to meting your deadlines this week - thats what I am going to do!
Andrew Donaldson
Note 014 done and dusted! Please give me any feedback whatsoever, I would love to hear from you - after all, this is for you :)
PS - if you have a friend, colleague, or archi-buddy that you think would benefit from Andrew’s Notes, please feel free to send this to them or share with the button below: - lets grow this tribe :)
Hi Peter, absolutely. The context here is that of running your small practice, and the stresses that mount - ideally to let everyone know that they are not alone, I go through the exact same challenges, hence the post! Wise words regarding not being able to do everything we want to do for our own self imposed deadlines - See Note 005 Time for my musings and tips on this. Perfection is the truly enemy of good - especially in a creative field like ours where there is 'no right answer'. When is a project finished? When you present and meet your deadline. As Woody Allen famously said in 1983: "80 percent of success... is showing up"
I think meeting deadlines needs to be put in context. Studio sets us up for just working more and more hours. Understanding the output required is what allows us to meet a deadlines. Truly understanding what matters and what doesn’t matter to meet that deadline and acknowledging that it may not be possible to do everything that we want to do is one of the best lessons I’ve learned.