Deadlines can be a cause of major anxiety, but there is a way to ease that tension. The next time you set a deadline on a task you’re completing for your boss, a client, a colleague, or whoever else is demanding of your time, keep a little secret to yourself: Make another deadline for yourself first.
Why two deadlines are better than one
Your deadline is usually the day other people are going to receive or critique your work, which adds to the stress around getting it done. Not only does it have to be done well, but it has to be done in time for them to see it without negative professional consequences.
Creating a second deadline for yourself is a good idea regardless of how quickly you end up completing the work. If you finish in time for your personal deadline, you’ll have some time to destress before the date your boss or client goes over everything. You can use that time to polish up your work or review anything you might have missed during crunch time. If you don’t get your task done before your personal deadline, you have already created a buffer period during which you can still get it done before whoever you’re accountable to knows something is amiss.
The best planners to help with your next deadline
Need help keeping these deadlines straight and visually planning out your time? Try an old-school planner, like these:
If you’re worried about giving yourself even less time to complete a difficult project, keep in mind that working under stress as deadlines loom can actually be good for your productivity. Try to reframe your stress as a benefit and consider the Yerkes-Dodson law, which models the relationship between stress levels and performance, demonstrating that in general, your poorest performance times will be linked with having too little and too much stress. Giving yourself a slightly earlier deadline to complete your work could be just the push you need to hit that sweet spot of productivity.
How to choose your secret deadline
Consider the task at hand when you’re setting out to make your personal deadline. If your boss wants notes from a meeting by end of day, give yourself until 2 p.m. If it’s a longer-term, weeks-long project, aim to give yourself a three-day buffer or so.
Ideally, chop up the distance between the current moment and your real deadline into thirds and make your personal deadline somewhere around the two-thirds’ mark. You still give yourself plenty of time to work, but enough padding to make revisions or, if all else fails, keep working up until the true deadline.
