Many years ago, I came across a very simple principle. It was found in perhaps the first series of blog posts I had ever read about this whole issue of productivity. It is a principle that I now live by. I do not set arbitrary deadlines. Not ever. Many people do though and so I am writing this to provide my logic as you think through the question – are arbitrary deadlines helpful?
What is a deadline?
Very simply – this is the date by which a project or a task MUST be completed by. When I was a student, I had essays and papers to complete. Each time an assignment was set, it came with a deadline. My dissertation needed to be submitted to the office of the Economics department at my university by 16:59pm on Friday 26th March 2004. That was a deadline.
A deadline is not the same as the date on which you actually do the task. Say that your car insurance expires on December 12th. You will need to find new car insurance by that date. That is your deadline. However, you won’t want to actually do the work to find the new policy on December 12th. The same is true of the Dissertation – you wouldn’t start work on it on the day it was due.
A deadline is the absolute final moment by which something MUST be completed. Normally, there are consequences if you do not and these will vary in their severity. Miss the submission deadline for a dissertation and you might fail the module and even your whole degree. Miss the deadline for car insurance and, for me at least, my current policy will auto renew but it probably wont be the best deal I could get.
Why set an arbitrary deadline?
I don’t mean in the sense of setting deadlines that are more realistic. For example, with purchasing a birthday present for someone, technically your deadline is their actual birthday. You might however set your deadline the day before. To a degree that is arbitrary, but I do not mean this.
An deadline that is truly arbitrary is one that you set entirely yourself with no external pressure and no consequences if you miss it. So, I have a project at the moment to digitise some of our old records and files. I could set an arbitrary deadline to have that complete by the end of 2024. In reality, it makes no difference I leave it to the end of 2025.
The only reason I have ever heard for setting an arbitrary deadline is to keep things moving. It is an act of self discipline. Only working with deadlines imposed upon you externally, is by definition a more ‘reactive’ approach to life. It basically means that the only things in life that have any kind of deadline attached, are those where it all comes from outside of yourself and outside of your own intentionality.
The danger of this is that things that really do matter to you might not get a look in. There is no urgency given to them and so they get left behind in the craziness of every day life. Even as I write this, I am realising that this does make a convincing argument.
Some mundane projects, like my digitisation project, will sit on your list for months or years without some kind of urgency attached to them. Other projects, key elements of self development and growth or perhaps important things for improving home and family, could also be ignored. Since no-one will tell you do these, it relies on your own self discipline to take action.
So, the solution to this, is to set some kind of arbitrary deadline. This will give you focus.
Why don’t I set arbitrary deadlines then?
I will be the first to say – the logic is strong and the argument is compelling. But, it is not my practice. I’ll outline 7 reasons why I don’t do this.
1. The logic is flawed
The logic seems strong, but it unravels pretty quickly with a little bit of thought and a simple question. The problem that we face is that in the business of every day life, important things get ignored and left by the wayside. So our focus becomes hugely reactive – only focussed on things where there is some external imperative placed upon us. So the logic is that if we set a deadline for these important things, where no ‘objective’ deadline exists, this will solve the problem.
But why?
Why will placing an arbitrary deadline on something solve this issue? I suppose the aim is to create a sense of urgency around it perhaps. In reality, this is a pretty weak way of trying to achieve this. What you need is to give time to something and there are far better ways of ensuring this than just slapping a deadline on it. If the issue is to do with self discipline, again setting deadlines for yourself is not really addressing the issue of self discipline. It might feel like you are, but you have done nothing at all to change your actual behaviour day to day and week to week. The deadline makes you feel better, but it does not really help with any of the issues.
2. Most of us know the difference between different types of deadline
I don’t need to say much on this. We know the difference. If a deadline is a deadline, we know it is a deadline. If a deadline is arbitrary and doesn’t really mean anything, we know it. When the chips are down, we will know that ultimately it doesn’t matter if we hit the deadline. When life is busy and we have multiple deadlines coming up, any that are self set deadlines, will be second order to the one set objectively by people and forces we are accountable to and must submit to. It’s that simple.
Since we can tell the difference, arbitrary deadlines are so much easier to just ignore.
3. Arbitrary deadlines are objectively different
I might get some push back on this but hear me out. Linked to the reason above, if we have two deadlines coming up, one is an objective deadline, external to ourselves and with real consequences for missing it, and the other is one we have set ourselves, then we know which is more important. The point I am making here is that it would be a mistake to follow the arbitrary deadline we have set ourselves at the expense of the external one imposed upon us. One has consequences and the other doesn’t. As above, we know which is more important, but here is the additional point. Ultimately these deadlines we set ourselves don’t mean very much. Sometimes it is wrong to keep to them.
What happens is that the more you ignore these deadlines, the cheaper they become. Eventually you reach a point where they mean nothing to you and you know they mean nothing. Spending time to decide and set them is time that is just wasted.
4. Deadlines impose urgency but not importance.
Setting an arbitrary deadline seeks to trick us into taking action by imposing urgency on a task or project. This is flawed and unnecessary. We all know of the Eisenhower Matrix. I don’t use it as a tool but the principle behind it is 100% true.
Somethings are urgent, somethings are important. Some things are both, some are neither. etc. The goal of this matrix and the goal of self discipline is to train ourselves to focus on what is important and not just what is urgent.
The idea behind setting arbitrary deadlines is the line of thinking that says, if something is important then the only way to reflect that is to make it urgent.
What this does is totally ignore the idea of the impact and importance of a task or a project for its value and for our day to day life and work. All we care about is urgency. Urgency is determined by our proximity to the deadline. So then, the value of something becomes entirely determined by how close we are to the deadline. This is where you end up if you follow the logic.
My point is that there are other, and far more powerful ways, to build self discipline and focus on what is truly important, than just slapping a deadline on it.
5. Creating deadlines → Creates urgency → Creates stress. And this is unnecessary.
Again, there is not much to say here. Deadlines create urgency. Urgency creates stress. So, the more deadlines you have, the greater the risk of feeling anxiety and stress.
When the deadlines are arbitrary, this is unnecessary. So, why do it?
6. Urgency leads to sloppier work
This follows on from the above. We have all had times where we feel we have a lot to do and time is ticking. This often leads to a more ‘frantic’ approach to our work. The more arbitrary deadlines we set, the more urgency we will feel in every day life. The more urgency we feel, the more likely we are to adopt this more frenetic and frantic approach to getting things done. This leads to poor quality work.
The danger is therefore, that setting these deadlines creates an environment for us where things that are actually important end up falling foul of sloppy work. This is not good.
7. Arbitrary deadlines cannot effectively predict the future.
I know people who will give any task or project a deadline at the moment they create it. The problem is we cannot predict the future. So, I create a project to redecorate my living room or to study for and write a paper on some topic of theology. No deadline is set for me so I slap on a made up one. For the study project, I estimate how long I think it will take alongside how long I want to allow for it (these things could go on forever after all!) and I set a deadline 3 months from now. Redecorating won’t take 3 months obviously, but it would be nice if it was done before the summer so May 31st becomes our new deadline.
Both of these deadlines are arbitrary.
I have no idea what will happen between now and then.
Other things might come up meaning I have less time to study and write than I need. More urgent home repair and improvement projects might become apparent. We set a deadline to force ourselves to take action but if that deadline is a future one, we are trying to predict that future. We can’t do it. The deadline becomes a ‘best guess’ and pretty much meaningless.
Are arbitrary deadlines helpful?
My answer is no.
The problem is how to give focus and time to things where no deadline exists but are important to you and your life somehow.
My answer is that setting a deadline is a pretty weak effort to try and resolve this issue. Personally, I don’t think it resolves the issue at all and I think it creates other problems. Therefore I do not do it.
There are ways to address this that are much more powerful but that is the subject of a future post.
A few exceptions
There are a few notable exceptions to this.
- Business Owners. If you are a business owner or an organisation leader, you might need to set deadlines that are always going to be decided by you or with your team. This is a bit different I think. Often this is done for a complex variety of reasons which can include keeping up with competition, adhering to predetermined standards etc and minimising bottlenecks in the flow of work. Therefore, they are not totally arbitrary.
- Pre-empting a deadline. I think setting an arbitrary deadline that is a short time before an objective deadline is also a bit different. As described above. Another example would be some kind of milestone deadline along the way to a main deadline. I did this when training for a half marathon. I set an arbitrary deadline of when I wanted to have run 10km by. But, the half marathon was 9th September and this was all part of being ready.
- A target is not a deadline. Sometimes, with some goals or project etc, we can set ourselves targets that function like deadlines but are a bit different. Suppose you want to lose weight. You met set a target weight but also a target date for meeting that weight target. This is a bit different but can be functionally similar in some ways.
So, I encourage to ask yourself this question – are arbitrary deadlines helpful? I don’t think they are and so I encourage you to consider this practice carefully before you dive in and follow it.
