Thursday
May102007
Deadlines are vital
If you really want to overcome the procrastination habit, then you need to ensure that you add some deadlines to your goals.
Having a deadline that you cannot get out of, as in there is no way the day or date can be changed, means that you have to do the work or fail miserably.
For me the biggest thing has been the looming City to Surf race. I have not yet registered for the race; you don’t do that for a few more weeks yet. But I know that I needed to start training early so that I could give myself plenty of time to gain the stamina, speed and endurance I would need to complete the course.
I have just uploaded my training diary, so if you want to check out the aches, pains and general training notes, then please visit the City to Surf Training Diary.
But of the other things on my goal list, there are no deadlines in sight. Every thing is “when I get around to it”.
But does it really matter?
Well of course it depends on the items on your goal list. But if you really want to get them moving, then you need to ensure that there is a deadline, and that you are held accountable.
If you are a student, handing assignments in on time, can be a great motivator. But unless the penalty for non-completion of the task is big enough to motivate you, as in – you are going to fail this course if I don’t get your assignment, then you may be tempted to do a little less than you know you should.
Business owners know they are completely responsible for how much work they do each and every day. If they are also responsible for motivating staff (employees sic) to achieve goals and targets, then there is no way you can deal in double standards, and hope to
a) stay in business for very long
b) retain your customer base
c) retain your employees.
If they see you sitting around all day, surfing the net, playing computer games and talking on the phone, whilst they do all the work, you can just imagine how much productivity there is going to be.
KPI’s (key performance indicators) are designed to make you assign realistic deadlines to a series of goals that you are supposed to complete.
If you have not yet assigned a deadline to your tasks, it is perhaps time to do so. After all, if a goal is on your list, then it is important to you, and should be a key performance indicator for where you are in your life at the moment, and where you hope to be after you have achieved the said items.
Of course there will be some items on your goal list (as there is on mine) that you simply can’t assign a date to – for instance, I have “read the top 100 books as designated by Angus and Robertson’s readers”…why should that be on my list in the first place? Well I have become very lazy when it comes to reading. Having chosen half a dozen items off the list so far I am impressed by the wide variety of titles on offer. It’s also known in my family as “because I can”. These “because I can” items are when either money or time allows. The wall climbing challenge was one of those items, climbing Ayers rock is another…
But for everything else, well I need to set some dates, and like the City to Surf training that I am doing, set aside some time each week so that I can complete them. How about you, does your goal list have realistic timelines set against them? Or are yours open ended? Whilst you need some open-ended goals, you also need to balance those with some definite end dates, otherwise you will get to the end of the week / month / year and have achieved – what exactly?
Having a deadline that you cannot get out of, as in there is no way the day or date can be changed, means that you have to do the work or fail miserably.
For me the biggest thing has been the looming City to Surf race. I have not yet registered for the race; you don’t do that for a few more weeks yet. But I know that I needed to start training early so that I could give myself plenty of time to gain the stamina, speed and endurance I would need to complete the course.
I have just uploaded my training diary, so if you want to check out the aches, pains and general training notes, then please visit the City to Surf Training Diary.
But of the other things on my goal list, there are no deadlines in sight. Every thing is “when I get around to it”.
But does it really matter?
Well of course it depends on the items on your goal list. But if you really want to get them moving, then you need to ensure that there is a deadline, and that you are held accountable.
If you are a student, handing assignments in on time, can be a great motivator. But unless the penalty for non-completion of the task is big enough to motivate you, as in – you are going to fail this course if I don’t get your assignment, then you may be tempted to do a little less than you know you should.
Business owners know they are completely responsible for how much work they do each and every day. If they are also responsible for motivating staff (employees sic) to achieve goals and targets, then there is no way you can deal in double standards, and hope to
a) stay in business for very long
b) retain your customer base
c) retain your employees.
If they see you sitting around all day, surfing the net, playing computer games and talking on the phone, whilst they do all the work, you can just imagine how much productivity there is going to be.
KPI’s (key performance indicators) are designed to make you assign realistic deadlines to a series of goals that you are supposed to complete.
If you have not yet assigned a deadline to your tasks, it is perhaps time to do so. After all, if a goal is on your list, then it is important to you, and should be a key performance indicator for where you are in your life at the moment, and where you hope to be after you have achieved the said items.
Of course there will be some items on your goal list (as there is on mine) that you simply can’t assign a date to – for instance, I have “read the top 100 books as designated by Angus and Robertson’s readers”…why should that be on my list in the first place? Well I have become very lazy when it comes to reading. Having chosen half a dozen items off the list so far I am impressed by the wide variety of titles on offer. It’s also known in my family as “because I can”. These “because I can” items are when either money or time allows. The wall climbing challenge was one of those items, climbing Ayers rock is another…
But for everything else, well I need to set some dates, and like the City to Surf training that I am doing, set aside some time each week so that I can complete them. How about you, does your goal list have realistic timelines set against them? Or are yours open ended? Whilst you need some open-ended goals, you also need to balance those with some definite end dates, otherwise you will get to the end of the week / month / year and have achieved – what exactly?
(MMM1) (MMW1) (MMO1)
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May 10, 2007 at 13:05
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