Deadlines can wreak havoc with your attempts at using good time management techniques. These deadlines surround you as you receive urgent requests: “We need this by…the end of the business day…24 hours from now…no later than Friday….” There is always something looming.

Good: Knowing when work is due lets you plan ahead, making prioritizing easier. In a proactive mode, you start your day focused and are able to concentrate on the important work, that work which has the most value for the company. Even though emergencies will arise, most are controlled, and so your time and talents are employed productively.

Bad: Being given false deadlines, with the subsequent pressure, when no one uses your data for a week, or a month, or even longer. False deadlines are frequent for a variety of reasons. On the one hand, it can be difficult to predict when data is actually needed. On the other hand, you may have a boss who creates early deadlines, anticipating that certain people will always be late. However the group catches on when the requested work is not put into play for a period of time, and then everyone starts lagging because they do not believe that is the ‘real’ deadline.

Ugly: Someone else’s frequent lack of planning can negate all your efforts to work productively. Everything becomes urgent because they have waited until the last minute. You start feeling that you have lost control and so only react to the urgent issues that arise every day, setting aside proactive planning. If everything that comes across your desk is listed as “urgent” or “asap,” you can become cynical, thinking they are crying “Wolf!” again. It turns into a guessing game. Which ones are real? True production can grind to a halt as everyone waits for that final push and then rushes through tasks without having time for thought. The culture becomes reactive.

If you delegate to others, you do want to give completion dates. if the date didn’t matter, then why assign the work at all? However, be careful. You want to empower others with a feeling of control over their days and maintain your own credibility. An environment with true deadlines lets you set priorities and limit stress.