How to Never Miss a Deadline, With Journalist Christopher Cox
Are you constantly adjusting the timing of your project? Are you waiting until the last minute to get started with tight deadlines? Well, worry no more, because this week we’re bringing you a solution to help you meet those deadlines every time.
Our guest at The Upgrade this week is journalist Christopher Cox, who, as a former editor-in-chief of Harper’s Magazine and former executive editor of GQ , knows a thing or two about meeting deadlines. In his new book, The Effect Filing Deadline : How To Work Like It Last Minute – Until the last minute , Chris researched several organizations that are extremely successful in project management and conference – timelines to find out what the secret is to always meeting deadlines. And luckily for us, there are some consistent tips and tricks that seem to be effective.
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Highlights from this week’s series
From an interview with Christopher Cox
On what the actual effect of the deadline is:
In fact, this is a tendency, especially in negotiations, but in reality, in nothing, wait to act until the very last minute. So the deadline is: you have a long, protracted process, or some kind of project or negotiation. You won’t make any progress in this direction until the clock actually turns to zero. Thus, this trend is a consequence of the deadline and usually has negative consequences for all participants. And in this book I talk about it a little bit. But then I also talk about, well, you know that if we were to use the full power of the deadline effect, you know, a kind of deadline ability to get us to do something, but tweak the deadline a bit, move it so that we could have used that deadline, but earlier and when we had more time to fix things.
On why people shouldn’t be afraid of shortening deadlines:
I have been the editor of a magazine for 15 years and my job was to get writers to submit their copies on time. And I’ve always thought there was a trade-off between meeting the deadline for my writers and then giving them the time they need to let the creativity bloom, do whatever you need to do to make the work its best. But as I read some of this research, I did come to the conclusion that creativity and deadline adherence do not contradict each other. In fact, just as some kind of deadline motivation can create space for creativity, it can be a motivation for the brilliant literary thoughts you could have even if you were given all the time in the world. In fact, if you take too much time for yourself, you become unhappy. And that’s not the way to become your best creative person.
On why people should stick to more deadlines:
[I] If you scold yourself for procrastinating, know that you are not alone at all. In fact, 20 percent of people describe themselves as chronic procrastinators, so they put off every project they take on. In college, that number is even higher – 50 percent. So put the blame aside for procrastinating and just think about what you can fix. And basically, I think that instead of working your way through the project yourself, like, “I have to do this, I don’t want to postpone,” you are using the deadline as an outside help to yourself. as a way not to rely on your own willpower, but to rely on the strength and focus that will bring you to get things done.
For more of Chris’s brilliant advice on meeting deadlines, we recommend listening to the entire episode.