Set Your Deadlines

Right, we’re going to make things happen. Umm...what things? When? Well, you have to put a date by all the things you’ve listed that you need to do. Otherwise it may never happen. Does this sound a bit like project management to you? Good, because it is. Getting what you want is a project, and you need to plan for it in the same way.

Deadlines, that’s what you need. Something to work to. You need to decide when things will happen—or at least the latest date by which they will have happened. Suppose you want your sister to host a family party for your brother’s thirtieth birthday. You know there’s loads that needs organizing—food, entertainment, invitations—but you need to get your sister to agree in the first place and probably your mother is the most likely person she’ll say yes to. So when will your mother next see your sister to ask in person? And when, in turn, does that mean you need to brief your mother? You see, it’s not only the obvious things that need deadlines.

Maybe you want to be given more of a marketing role at work after the planned reorganization next year. What will it take to persuade your boss to give you that responsibility? Do you need to gain any extra qualifications or experience first? When would you need to do that? When should you let your boss know what your ambitions are? If you want to produce a marketing-related report to impress your boss, when would you need to do that?

Everything needs a deadline, or why would it ever bother to happen? You can probably complete it before the deadline—that’s great—but if you let everything pass it will never happen at all. And you’ll have only yourself to blame.