12 Techniques of Giving an A+ Performance When the Deadline is Tight
Sometimes, there’s simply no time to think twice.
We’ve all been in a situation where a certain task needs to be done in a very tight time span. And the outcome…well, isn’t always the best.
Sometimes it happens unexpectedly, sometimes the scale is simply too big to execute in time, or it might just be bad time management.
Nonetheless, no matter the reason the problem is always the same:
A big chunk of work should be done quickly and with a quality in it but there’s simply not enough time for that.
In those conditions, you should use a lot of different skills simultaneously to achieve high efficiency that’ll allow you to finish everything in time while making it look like ‘it all went just as planned’.
There are some crucial techniques which will help you to ensure that you’ll squeeze the most out of the tightest deadline.
But first, we should break down all possible situations into three major categories:
- ‘I started too late or misjudged the complexity of the task’
- ‘The task emerged suddenly or deadline tightened unexpectedly’
- ‘I’m waiting for someone else to finish before I can start’
You need to apply plenty of different tips and tricks to succeed in any of these cases but despite many of the following techniques are applicable to all three, some of them fit only to a certain category.
Now when we’re done, let’s delve into each of them deeper.
1st Category — ‘Late Doers’
Let’s face it. If you found yourself in that one — you have some issues with time management. And while you might learn how to navigate through that crisis efficiently, similar situations will arise until you solve those issues.
But that’s a whole different story and we’re not here for that, right? So let’s begin our ‘emergency guide’ without further ado.
- Make your priorities straight
Every kind of task — except the most linear ones — consists of different parts and processes. For example, to make a presentation you should: research your topic, make a summary, write down the content, work on design and formatting, remember the most important theses, and prepare some supporting materials. Sounds like a lot. But in reality, some parts are clearly much more important than the others, so by prioritizing them in descending order, you’ll ensure that even if you won’t do everything in time — the essential work will be ready. And that’s alone can turn the outcome from ‘disastrous’ to ‘not that bad’. - Set micro-deadlines and alarms
If your deadline is a matter of hours, not even days — the best thing to do is to take all the time you have and decide exactly how much you can afford to spend on each stage of the task. Besides, you might set a bunch of alarms 15 minutes prior to every micro-deadline of yours. By doing that you will stay in rhythm and will know when it’s time to wrap up the job and proceed to the next part.
P.S. Don’t forget to count out at least a couple of hours for sleeping, using a bathroom and thinking what you’re doing with your life. - Use any shortcuts you can
Urgent problems require urgent solutions. Divide your task into parts which you have to do on your own and ones you can get some help with. No matter what it is, it’s fine as long as it saves you much needed time.
Have some design templates? Use them. Found some related information? Utilize it. (but draw the line between utilizing and stealing, while first is a handy tool — second is simply a crime). Have someone who could help? Ask for it. After all, can outsource some work? Do it. There are plenty of platforms for that — like Fiverr, Upwork, and etc. Some people earn from other people’s chaos. That’s how life is. - Do not turn it into a habit
Really, that’s just a piece of friendly advice. I, myself, fought with that kind of attitude in the past and know exactly how much energy it takes, how badly it affects the productivity and overall personal growth. Such a situation can happen to anyone but try to avoid becoming too comfortable with it. It might change your mindset for the worse.
2nd Category — ‘Oopsy Daisy’
That is probably the most frustrating one because usually, it has nothing to do with a person who won’t sleep at night in an attempt to stitch up everything together in time. But no matter by whose fault it happened — someone would have to deal with it. And if that ‘someone’ might be you — you better listen.
- Negotiate
Don’t agree on everything you’ve been told to do instantly. Try to bargain first, use some reasoning to take more out of less. Something like: ‘I’m not sure if it’s possible to do this in such a short time’ would be a good start. But the golden rule is to offer, not just disagree. After you’ll make your statement — suggest your terms: ‘I need an extra day to get it done’, or something else depending on the situation. Usually, it works because it indicates that you did some estimations and know what you’re talking about. Even if you don’t. - Don’t panic
It might sound like dumb advice but statistically, that’s a most common reaction to situations like sudden deadline changes by the client or some other unplanned hassles. Once, my buddy talked to me for an hour and a half about the urgent design project his boss tasked him to get done by tomorrow’s morning. I’ve said to him that he wasted time which he hadn’t much to begin with, but he just couldn’t stop. So calm down, breath in, breath out — focus on trying your best and start working. It won’t be your fault even if you’ll fail. - Be honest but not brutally honest
The ‘fake it till you make it’ mindset can be useful in some situations, but that’s not one of them. By giving false promises that you can’t keep you will only ruin your reputation as well as someone else’s plans and expectations. Need an extra couple of hours? Say it. Don’t make up stupid excuses but don’t be too specific also. If ‘I can’t think of a single worthy line since tomorrow and I’m still barely at the midpoint of my text’ will sound terrifying for the client/manager/chief editor, then ‘I need a few more hours to polish my material, I feel it’s still a bit raw ’ will be a little annoying but seemingly reasonable cause to agree with. - Be in touch
From my personal experience, all cases in which I was in touch with my clients or top management (when I still had one) ended significantly better than those where I went into an offline-till-I-finish mode. Human nature has one very peculiar feature — when we don’t know what to expect, we often expect the worst. So by giving other people a room for getting alerted, you shooting a future self in the leg. Or an arrow in the knee, if you prefer.
3rd Category — ‘Broken Raley Race’
Everyone hates that. When you forced to wait until someone else finishes his or her part before you can even start yours. And that person isn't hurrying at all — if word it out in a most polite way possible.
- Don’t be too pushy
Don’t get me wrong, you absolutely need to be on constant contact with that person but there a lot of ways to ruin it. There are no enough words to express the whole color palette of insults one strives to say when some lazy ass just do not deliver, making one excuse after another. But by doing that you won’t get anything but more problems and even less information. Same with constant ‘When?’ questions, they just don’t work. - You’re all on the same boat
Use all your eloquence to convince the other side that you’re in this together and you need to cooperate to succeed. Offer your help and ask what’s an actual issue that prevents him/her from speeding up. If the cooperation will be established — it means you achieved the best possible outcome in such a situation. If not, it’ll be a hard one… - Break it to pieces
Think about whether you need a second person to do everything before you actually could start or maybe you can exchange information/materials piece by piece to proceed. There’s also could be something that would be more convenient to do later but totally possible to do first instead. The worst-case scenario of you finding yourself caught up in a tight deadline project — is to simply wait for something. Do what you can, even if it’s not the best way to do it. - Use critical measures
Personally, I’m strongly against pointing fingers to save your own skin but when things get tense you might want to articulate such a possibility to the unresponsive or stubborn person. If you know that the whole project is going down solely because of someone else's fault — tell them that. Let them know that if everything will go really bad because of their unprofessional behavior you won’t take the blame before people who wait for the project to be delivered. And even more, you will let them know of the actual reason, not after the fact of the failure but prematurely so it won’t look like an attempt to throw someone under a bus. Be sure to use such arguments only when you’ve tried everything else to no avail. I can say, sometimes it might have a damn magical effect. Unfortunately.
But in the end, no matter what problems you’re facing and by whose fault, remember:
If you did your best to overcome the problem, it means you’ve already won.
For business inquiries contact me at: d.grybach@gmail.com
