Deadlines: We all have them, and we all dread them. But there are ways to stop drowning in deadlines-to stop seeing them as something negative and start embracing them. And making deadlines work for you instead of the other way around is the first step toward managing stress and improving your productivity.
Why Do Deadlines Stress Us Out?
Deadlines can be set arbitrarily by an external party or self-imposed by ourselves
- Arbitrarily set deadlines may not take into account things like the amount of work required to complete a project or how much other work you have on your plate.
- Deadline can be stressful because we only set one: the date when all work for a project will be complete.
Set more urgent deadlines
We’re more motivated to complete a task on short notice than a longer one, even at our own expense
- Longer deadlines hinder us from getting work done because we think of them as more difficult
- If we think a task is challenging, we tend to procrastinate more
Share your goals and progress with others
Commitment to one person increases your chances of meeting a goal by 65 percent
- This increases by a whopping 95 percent if you hold ongoing accountability meetings
- If you don’t have a boss or project sponsor who’s setting deadlines for you, it might be worth asking someone to become your accountability partner
Set multiple deadlines instead of just one
One way to create less stressful and more realistic deadlines is to break large projects into smaller tasks.
- Using a tool like TickTick (free plan available) helps you visualize how much progress you’ve made on a project and motivates you to complete the remaining tasks.
Turn meeting your deadlines into a game
Find a task that is challenging enough to be rewarding, but not so difficult that it diminishes your motivation.
- Apply the gamification principle to tasks we find particularly unattractive. Make a task a game to make it more fun and motivating.
Find your ideal stress level
According to the Yerkes-Dodson law, the appropriate amount of stress should inspire increased productivity and improved performance-at least until stress levels start to exceed the optimal point
- Difficult tasks require low levels of stress; they’re arousing on their own
- Moderate, easy, and easy-to-follow tasks all have similar stress levels
- Easier tasks yield the best results when there’s a higher level of stress
- Complex projects don’t benefit from high arousal and suffer the opposite effect
