What is a deadline and what functions does it perform? What is Hello, dear readers! Welcome to the blog

Hello, dear readers! Welcome to the blog!

Deadline - what does it mean? Previously, this word could only be heard at work, but now it is increasingly used outside of work. What exactly does the word deadline mean? How is it translated? How to use it correctly? You will find out in this short article.

Deadline - translation?

Word Deadline comes from English Deadline, which literally translates as “ dead" + "line », that is « absolutely, tightly" + "line, border".

From such a categorical combination of two words, it becomes clear that we are talking about the very « deadline » , O « extreme limit » , O « dead line » , beyond which you cannot go.

Deadline - what is it, the meaning of the word?

Deadline is the most extreme date (usually the date) for the completion of any one task or an entire project..

Experts in the field of effective management note that in those companies where it is customary to set and control intermediate and final deadlines, employees work more productively.

In what areas is the term Deadline used?

In advertising A limited offer period is often used. This encourages the client to make a purchasing decision faster. Advertisers call this offer: an offer with a deadline.
In the field of project management Deadline is perhaps the most popular word, because projects usually have an implementation plan that the entire team follows. This plan includes Deadlines for both intermediate tasks and the final Deadline for delivery of the project to the Customer (for example, development and delivery of software to the Customer).
From journalists The deadline is usually periodic. For example, every Monday a journalist must submit material (an article) for publication.
In business Deadlines can be urgent or gradual. An urgent Deadline often involves double payment to company employees, as it is due to the fact that the order must be completed as quickly as possible. A phased Deadline involves breaking down a large task into subtasks. Management controls the implementation of intermediate tasks.
In sports There are also deadlines, for example, the deadline by which a player can transfer to another football team.
We can say that the term Deadline is absolutely applicable to all areas of activity. When we compose ours, we also indicate deadlines. And if a goal does not have a deadline, then it is not a goal, but a dream.

If a goal does not have a deadline (=deadline), then it is not a goal, but a dream

Examples of using the term Deadline in everyday life.

Sorry, I won’t be able to go to football with you today, I have to finish my diploma. Tomorrow is the deadline...
I’m afraid I’ll be left without a fee, because I’ve missed the deadline for submitting a series of articles...
Our boss gives us absolutely unrealistic deadlines...

I recommend reading Tom DeMarco's novel Deadline »

This is a novel about project management. If you want to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of project management, want to understand what it means from the inside to work on large projects, in IT companies, if you dream of working as a project manager or business analyst, or are already working in this field, be sure to read this novel.

I myself worked on large projects and I can say that the author managed to convey the atmosphere of the project very realistically, atmosphere of life in a state of constant Deadlines!

The book can be read online for free. Here is the link: Tom DeMarco “Deadline novel about project management” free download >>>

You can quickly familiarize yourself with the book directly in the article:

Resume

I hope the article “Deadline - what does it mean?” turned out to be useful for you. You can use the term Deadline to emphasize your erudition.

I wish everyone easy deadlines in the implementation of ideas and projects!

Read the blog to find out how to change your life for the better!

Finally, I suggest you watch this useful video on how to wisely spend time with maximum benefit, and how not to waste time:

A deadline is the deadline or final date for something: the completion of work of any kind, the deadline for submitting an order, the final date for submitting material, and the like. This word comes from the English “deadline”, which literally means “death” and “line” (“dead” and “line”). In this case, the deadline is the deadline date or time. And the English word “dead” is used here for a reason. It further emphasizes that the appointed date and time are final - this is a kind of “death line”.

If we talk about the areas of application of this term, it is used almost everywhere. For example, in sports, a deadline is the time by which a match or game must be completed, as well as the last day when a player has the opportunity to move to another team or club of his own free will. In medicine, this term is used to fix the maximum possible date for performing any therapeutic measures. For example, in order to indicate the deadline. In relation to the field of advertising, the deadline date is used as a limiter on the validity period provided to potential buyers, clients or partners. This is necessary in order to once again provoke the consumer to take immediate action, in this way to stimulate him to make a purchase.

If we talk about using the term “deadline” exclusively in the business sphere, then today experts in the field of effective work time management identify several main types of deadlines. The first is the urgent type, which means work (or order) that must be completed as quickly as possible. The implementation of tasks of this type always requires much more effort than usual, so they are often associated with receiving double rewards. The second type is a phased deadline associated with the gradual delivery of several orders or the gradual completion of various types of work. In this case, only after the customer (employer) approves the current stage will it be possible to proceed to the next one. And the third type is periodic. A recurring deadline is the principle by which most journalists or advertisers work, when, for example, every Monday they need to submit new material to management.

Every modern person faces one type of deadline or another during his life. In order to avoid constantly thinking that the deadline is approaching faster and faster when such a situation arises, there are a few little tricks. Firstly, if possible, you need to divide a large job (order, project) into several parts. Secondly, it is necessary to have a good idea of the goal and clearly plan all the stages to achieve it. Thirdly, it is very important to ensure that the surrounding space (room, table) is clean and tidy. If there is order around you, then there will be no confusion in your thoughts, which means you can think through everything well and make the right decision without fear of the upcoming deadline.

In any company, employees have heard a phrase like “deadline is Wednesday.” Since this expression migrated to Russia relatively recently, the majority immediately begins to ask the question: “Deadline - what is it?” The answer will be presented in this article.

The essence of the expression

The literal meaning of the word “deadline” can be interpreted as “dead line” or “death line”. This expression denotes the deadline for completing a task. That is, the time after which further work will be pointless. Very often, especially in our country, work likes to be postponed until the very last moment. And even if after that it is completed on time, it certainly cannot be called high-quality.

In today's world, bosses love to set deadlines. What this is can be seen with an example. Let's say you work in an office as a designer. The boss tells you that you need to draw a new company logo and sets a deadline from Wednesday to Wednesday, that is, a week. If this is a rather time-consuming task for you, and you, wandering around the corners, have not done anything in these seven days, then the specified period is your deadline. The translation of this word means “line of death,” which, of course, is not very true. But initially this word was used in the army - it meant the border, crossing which threatened death. How it migrated into the labor sphere remains a mystery.

Deadline? What is this?

This word is mainly used in those areas that our country “borrowed” from European or American countries. These include various design and advertising agencies, all kinds of freelance exchanges and the activities of programmers - in general, all the work that has appeared in Russia relatively recently. As a rule, this word is used in creative professions. It is unlikely that you will hear it at any foundry from foreman Ivanov.

In fact, a deadline is just a designation of the deadline for completing a task. But if for some people this period is an unremarkable routine, then for others it is a time of panic. A deadline can have a wide variety of impacts on human activity.

How does the deadline work?

You can come up with a simple example - let's say a person was given two weeks to complete a task that he could complete in five days. Here we can already make a division into two types of people:

Who will do the job in five days and wait for the next one.
Which will do the job in two weeks.

For people in the first category, the deadline has no effect. Such people are always busy with work, they are confident that they will manage to complete everything on time. Those who plan their time rarely become victims of deadlines.

With the second group of people everything is different. As a rule, knowing that there is enough time, they will prefer “fun” first, and then “business”. Postponing the task over and over again, such workers often begin work only when there are 3 or 4 days left until the end of the deadline. And if initially they had the opportunity to complete the work efficiently and on time, now they will not only not be able to do this, but will also receive a little emotional stress about this. A deadline is an employee's time limiter.

Based on this example, we can conclude: any boss should be able to set a deadline correctly. What does it mean? If there is initially insufficient time to complete a task, the work will either be performed poorly, or it may become seriously stressful for the employee. Even if the boss is not interested in the emotional state of his subordinates, we can say that under stress, performance decreases significantly.

Reverse side

If there is too much time, then this is fraught with the same consequences, with the only difference that this will mainly concern unscrupulous employees who like to put things off until later. In the same way, you can easily weed out bad employees who will submit work last, from good ones who will complete it right away. But this only works if the boss is fully aware of how much time it takes to solve a particular problem.

It is important to note here that although the very concept of “deadline” is mainly used in business, such restrictions haunt people throughout their lives. Even the time from getting up to going to work can be called a deadline.

"Reasonable" deadline

Initially, a deadline was invented as an incentive for employees to complete a task. He should motivate them to quickly solve problems and force them to put all unimportant matters away in a drawer. But it is worth noting that this only works in cases where the boss and subordinate are able to correctly express their thoughts. Let’s say the company has a new manager who still doesn’t really know what activities to allocate and how much time to devote. And so he approaches the employee and says: “You have been given a two-day deadline.” The employee understands perfectly well that this is too little and twice as much time is needed. And at this moment the subordinate should be very careful. Of course, the boss is higher in the hierarchy, but this does not mean that the employee does not have the right to conduct a dialogue with him. On the contrary, he must always be able not only to blindly agree and then tear his hair out, but also be able to justify his point of view and explain why he needs more time.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to say that a deadline is just a tool that helps bosses and managers correctly allocate the time needed to complete certain tasks. And how this tool will work depends only on how it will be used. A deadline can be both a great ally for a company and something that will pull it to the bottom over and over again.

Organizational behavior expert Richard Boyatzis believes that the more stress a deadline causes, the less open a person is to finding ways to solve problems. Therefore, in those moments when the company expects us to think outside the box, we find ourselves unable to offer even standard ideas and methods.

However, one should not conclude from this that a deadline is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, if you really want to learn how to deal with situations like this, there are a few things you need to consider.

Extreme time pressure deprives us of adequacy.

Great ideas don't necessarily come to us on schedule, so you can't expect your team to come up with, say, an amazing marketing campaign in two hours. Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School, keeps thousands of work diary entries over many years and analyzes people's mood, quality of work and other factors. And here’s what she noticed: despite the fact that under the pressure of deadlines people demonstrate low creativity in their results, they themselves believe that these days they have a surge of creative energy.

In short, you may think that deadlines spark creativity in you, but they don't.

To some extent, a deadline helps us focus.

When you're not under pressure from a deadline, your brain is constantly looking for new ideas, which can be good for creativity. But then you will see that some of these ideas are irrelevant.

Deadlines allow you to put things in order. For example, psychologically you agree with yourself that you will not worry about the fact that, say, your laptop may need to be replaced, Richard Boyatzis gives an example. Because you are focused only on this problem - and in this case, the deadline helps to place emphasis.

Creativity isn't the only thing that matters.

There is a big gap between “deadlines blocking creativity” and “meeting deadlines” because the best is the enemy of the good. If you're a sports reporter covering a baseball game, your readers care most about who won and how the winning team performed, and they want to know this information as quickly as possible. Just remember that not every result requires a creative gift.

Self-set deadlines are much better.

By setting your own deadline for completing something, you can accomplish two things. You'll be focused enough to get the job done without being under too much external pressure—which makes it easier to stay open to new ideas.

Mini-deadlines are stronger than “big” deadlines.

If you are working on a large project, then by setting intermediate deadlines, you can create a motivating environment for a sense of progress, movement towards the final goal. To visualize the process, create detailed spreadsheets and record in them the stages of work on the project, those responsible and their results.

Mini-deadlines allow you to use room for maneuver, even if the large project as a whole does not allow for such maneuvers.

Some people are more deadline-oriented than others.

Experienced managers know that different people respond to different incentives. Much in this case is determined by the specifics of the profession. If the reporter's work is related to daily news, then he will strictly adhere to deadlines. Moreover, he does not have to be highly motivated - he already knows what to do and when.

Others, on the contrary, require additional control. That doesn't mean they're bad workers, just that they're different people, warns Richard Boyatzis. After all, good management is built primarily on getting to know the people you work with, and deadlines are used as one of the tools for completing work on time.

7 rules for never missing deadlines

Taking into account all of the above, it should still be recognized that failure to meet deadlines greatly damages professional reputation and causes inconvenience to colleagues. Therefore, it is important to look for ways to combat this bad habit.

1. Accept that you can't do everything at once.

This is where you actually need to start working on yourself. Often highly professional people think that they are capable of doing more than they have time for. This ultimately leads to them not meeting deadlines.

2. Calculate in advance how much time it will take to complete a task.

Underestimating this factor is very harmful - you may simply overestimate your abilities. Start tracking your time: pay attention to how much time it actually takes to complete certain tasks. Compare the result obtained with the deadline that you initially set. Once you see the time difference, make adjustments where necessary and start working according to realistic deadlines.

3. Try to honestly deal with the personal reasons for missing deadlines.

If the problem of not meeting deadlines has become chronic, then it is imperative to understand its causes. In fact, there may be several explanations for what is happening:

You deny the existence of the problem itself.
You're too busy.
You are trying to meet deadlines that are unrealistic.
You are easily distracted.
You are breaking your promise.

Once you answer the “why” question, you can understand the “how” to solve the problem.

4. Establish a personal dependency on deadlines.

Ph.D. and clinical psychologist Steve Levinson argues that the habit of missing deadlines is cultivated by the lack of consequences. The way to solve this problem is to take intentional and specific actions so that you actually feel obligated to meet your deadlines.

5. Start working on the project as soon as you receive it.

It is better to take on a task on the same day you receive it. No need to delay. Do the important prep work: do background research if necessary, prepare a folder with the necessary files, collect notes, discuss project ideas, carefully study the details of the assignment. There is no need to try to embrace the immensity on the first day, just lay the foundation for future work with simple steps.

Do small tasks at once. If someone sends you an email that requires a short response, respond to it immediately. What takes five minutes, don’t stretch it out over a day. Free up time for more serious projects.

6. Fool yourself with other deadlines.

Many experts advise setting “personal deadlines” that are several days ahead of the date someone else sets for you. This is a great way to build in some “spring” if circumstances turn out to mean that the project will take longer than you expected.

Deadlines should be viewed as an internal rather than an external motivator. Why is this important? Because psychologically, we stop relying on other people to set time limits. As a result, we begin to do what we must do at the right time for us.

In addition, external motivators can always be justified (“this deadline is actually not that important,” “no one will notice a two-day delay”). But intrinsic motivators don't have qualifiers - we set them ourselves, and we decided that we would do it, regardless of the deadlines that other people gave us.

7. Provide yourself with a useful set of tools.

Luckily, we live in a world that offers hundreds of tools to help us manage our time. You can start with at least the most accessible ones - for example, use a calendar in Gmail or Yandex, setting up reminders there for meetings, calls and upcoming events. You can manage task flows using the Trello program. We recently wrote about, which also helps you effectively manage your time and wisely distribute tasks into urgent and secondary ones.

Your personal toolkit will be formed gradually, and it will, of course, be unique. The main thing is to remember about the possibilities of optimizing processes and do not forget to use those simple tools that make life easier and allow you to free up time.

In our world, absolutely nothing stands still; the world moves forward. Technologies are constantly updated. People change and learn. Cities are built and expanded. In the same way, new words and terms appear in our communication. Nowadays there are quite a lot of different newfangled words that perhaps not everyone knows about. The use of various terms and sayings in the business sphere is very relevant.

There are words that then smoothly flow into our everyday life and we quite widely and often begin to use it in everyday life, for example there is the word deadline, already known and loved by quite a lot of people. Initially, it was used only in a work environment, it was especially relevant for freelance workers, but now it can be used in everyday life.

Deadline carries with it the meaning of a period, usually the last, final one. This is the final date, the final deadline, after which the result is no longer so important, it simply becomes unnecessary. Using an example, if we explain it in an accessible language, let’s say you have a flight today, but you are very late for the flight, you know the deadline for check-in time at the airport, but alas, you were late, did not make it in time by the extremely acceptable time, that’s all, having and the ticket is in hand, the result is no longer important, you are late and you are no longer flying anywhere, this was a missed deadline. As you can see, a person may encounter one or another type of deadline all the time in his life.

These are words of English origin. The use of this expression is a kind of mannerism, because one could say, the deadline for the task of this project is then and then, but, thanks to this term, it is enough to simply indicate, the deadline is then and that’s it, it’s so fashionable, and in general short and convenient

There are four types of business processes in workflows:

urgent,
phased,
disposable
repeating, by arranging which workers build the boundaries of the upcoming task.

Always know how to conveniently, correctly and competently build priorities for yourself, so as not to think about deadlines, the approaching deadline in any of its manifestations. When taking on a large amount of work, try to wisely divide the stages of its implementation, creating a convenient work scheme for yourself. Put things in order around you, both in your affairs and in your thoughts, and then you will be able to be absolutely confident not to be afraid of any deadline.

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