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If truth be told, deadlines are something that makes everybody feel stressful – from business owners to project managers to executives. Some individuals are more scared of deadlines than they are of actually dying. But meeting tough and scary deadlines can be as simple as setting it for a particular day.
Deadlines can also be a source of motivation, excitement, dedication, and a real purpose only if you look at it in the right direction. The closer the deadlines get, the more determined the individuals become.
Setting strategic deadlines are important for entrepreneurs for the following reasons:
- To prioritize and focus on tasks that matter most
- To keep things moving in the right track
- To stimulate sense of accountability, creativity and inspiration
- Keep employees unwilling to make lame excuses
- Increase your team’s confidence and motivate them to achieve more
- Make your team responsible for project’s goals
Since you know the real significance of deadlines for your workplace, now it’s time to know some smart tricks that many successful business leaders follow for meeting their deadlines at their workplace.
Find the Difference between Urgent and Important
The very first step is to carefully check your to-do list and find out if you have any important tasks that need your immediate attention. Those tasks that are urgent need to be get done within few hours, by the end of the day or the time mentioned in the task details.
If not done on time, it will lead to some serious consequences and your loss. So, knowing the real difference between urgent and important is important and focus on getting a piece of urgent work done immediately.
You Need to Sleep Properly to Perform Smarter
For your brain to perform out-of-the-box you need to sleep well. Poor sleeping patterns can simply lead to an unproductive day ahead. A study conducted by Harvard Medical School, an average American loses more than 11 days in productivity each year due to insomnia and bad sleeping patterns. Insufficient sleep can be a significant cause missed project deadlines.
However, a short nap or sufficient sleeping patterns will let you focus more on tasks and will make your mind clear. Prepare your to-do list and propose a realistic deadline. This will help you to get a clearer mind and get all your tasks done with a fresher mind.
Getting Started Efficiently
You need to have a clear strategy for dealing with scary deadlines. Being an entrepreneur, you can motivate your team to start their tasks now, and try to figure out what is missing and focus on small steps in front of them. You can get valuable feedback in the initial phases of the project and then iterate when needed.
Break the Project Down
A big project starts with one small task and then another task until you reach your milestone. That’s how you can easily achieve intricate projects by simply taking small achievable and consecutive steps.
Breaking down your larger, complex projects into smaller chunks can efficiently make the project manageable. To get things on the right track, clearly define the project and start with intricate, big tasks and then break them down into smaller ones that have their own deadlines.
This way, each team member will be doing a bit of the big tasks. Dividing the big tasks is a smart way to make sure the deadlines are achievable and met on time. In short, it is a tried and tested way to managing long-term projects.
Use an Efficient Project Management Technology
According to the latest trends, most entrepreneurs are handling projects remotely. Thanks to the advanced technology that has made it simpler for entrepreneurs to handling small or large group of teams effectively. It has made the life of both employees and business owners easier.
Now business teams are using a variety of free task tracking software and project management systems for dealing with their projects. A task management system will help you to keep track of your team members and projects.
You can easily set a milestone and meet all the scary deadlines by keeping things well-organized and on-time delivery of projects. You can also keep track of time spent on task by every team member, to check the performance of teams and plan the future deadlines accordingly.
Better Team Collaboration
Assuming things to have happened and delaying deadlines can kill the workplace productivity. For successful projects and managing deadlines, it is critical to create an effective communication plan.
For an effective team collaboration, business owners should make effective business dashboards for better and instant communication, ensuring meeting deadlines for each task and in the case of any issue teams can easily notify each other to rectify the situation. Teams can also share innovative ideas, important documents and project notes over chat and discuss how to make things better.
Over to You
At first, it can be a little stressful but if your manager already knows these tricks, it would keep the expectations on the same pace. It is even better to explain your manager that it would take a bit longer and you need some more time.
This way your manager will know that you are working harder but due to some circumstances you won’t be able to meet the deadlines. Inform in a timely manner to all the team members and come up with some alternatives. I hope, with the above cited easy tricks meeting deadlines is easy.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
Thanks Alisia. Rest…one of the least expensive, yet so vital, steps. Glad you included it. Often overlooked is having a very clear picture of the most desired outcome. May change through the process but need to be able to communicate each step clearly so as to get most helpful feedback from team members.
The choiсe of functional and powerful product management tool for our developers team between classical Trello and little-know Atlaz was a bit difficult. But at the end we read this comparison table
https://atlaz.io/atlaz-vs-trello/ and eventually chose Atlaz, cause this service much more functional and free!