The Wealth Spa

Stop With Aggressive (aka Crazy) Deadlines: Time Perception Tip part 2

Posted on 31. Jul, 2008 by Elizabeth Potts Weinstein in Life Balance

Over the years I’ve given the recommendation of motivating yourself via setting a deadline, or announcing a date.

For example, in August of 2006 I was considering launching a teleclass series for the fall (my first teleclass series!) and kept putting off the program because it was “not ready” (really because I was scared).  So my coach forced me to just pick a date & announce it to my list.  Started promoting, even though I had not finalized what I would be teaching, much less the handouts & spreadsheets.

And that worked pretty well.  Did not sell as many seats as I might have, since I only had 4 weeks to promote … but got the class done, some great testimonials, and TONS of content.  The idea is that I was not going to flake out on my clients, so I would be forced to Get It Done. 

These last 2 years I continued this principle of making aggressive deadline announcements, in an effort to motivate myself to produce drastic amounts of content & change.  Worked great for teleclasses, ebooks, new website launch, etc.

But here’s where I ran into a problem.  I tried to use this method for the launch of my Grow Up! Strategies book & the Cash Flow in a Box information product … and burned myself.  Announced launch dates, pre-sales, when it would ship, promised all kinds of things to my list … and even sold books/products … without being able to deliver on my promises. 

Of course I gave tons of surprise bonuses, kept everyone informed, gave a refund to one person who was frustrated … but felt that I failed myself and my clients.  Like a big loser. 

Here’s the mistake.  Aggressive deadlines work great to motivate yourself and people over whom you have control (employees, staff).  But they don’t work on people who are out of your control — like publishers, printers, and fulfillment houses.  I can stay up all night to deliver on an ebook or teleclass, but I can’t make the fulfillment house print, assemble, and ship boxes all night long.  (yes, I can fire them and hire someone new, but the boxes are still sitting in a warehouse)

So if you are using aggressive deadlines to motivate yourself to get it done, great.  But don’t set & announce deadlines that are dependent upon people you do not control.  Wait until you have the power to deliver.  

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• The Dog Ate My Blog, or 5 Time Perception Tips, part 1 (5)
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• Going With the Flow (2)
• Everything Is Not #1: Time Perception Tip #3 (3)

Tags: life hack, productivity, Time Management