Trigger Question #97:
No matter what the time of year, there is a deadline near you. So this could be as good a time as any to ponder the real meaning of the term deadline. Yes, yes, we all know deadline as the date or time by which you must have done something or delivered on a promise.
But in your current predicament, the one where you are running out of time, using deadline in its original meaning will help you better focus your thinking and energy.
So what is the original meaning of deadline? A deadline is a line drawn around a prison. If a prisoner crosses that line… bang! The guards in the towers with the spotlights and the guns will shoot the prisoner. The prisoner, having stepped beyond the line, is now dead. Hence, the name deadline.
The dead in deadline means no more time. (At least not here on Earth.) And that’s how we should view a deadline. As looming dead time. No more time to do whatever you bravely committed to get done.
Yes, deadlines can be effective in pepping your performance. But dead time! Well, that’s another level of pep altogether. Why? Because of where your focus will now fall.
A deadline makes us focus on the list of things yet undone, and on what we think we can still get done. Looming dead time forces us to identify what really matters, what we must get done. Approaching a deadline, we focus more on quantity and less on quality; we aim to be efficient in the time remaining. (We go tick, tick.) But when we know what really matters in the time remaining, before dead time, we aim for quality of outcomes. We strive to be effective.
Here’s a simple example. You must give a presentation. You know what it’s about, or you think you do. So you spend hours selecting the right template, colors, font, cartoons, graphics, slide transitions, all within the deadline. But as dead time looms, staring at a disjointed pack of pretty slides, you suddenly wonder, “What message matters most and how best can I deliver it?”
Are deadlines and dead time mutually exclusive? No, not if you use them this way: Plan according to deadlines, and as the deadline draws near, act according to dead time.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
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Quote of the Moment:
“I prefer self-imposed deadlines because then I can decide whether I should enforce them. Or not.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.
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