How to Manage Your Deadlines Like a Professional

Creative work is kind of like water. It's fluid, messy and unpredictable. Lots of artists revel in this chaos and talk about how great all-nighters are. Still, this way of working is unhelpful if want to finish what you started creating without losing your mind.

As a writer or artist, one of the best ways to bring order to your work is by using a deadline.

A target finish date of a few weeks or months will force you to make creative decisions about your work.

You'll have to decide what to work on, ignore, edit, expand on and more. You'll also have to decide what to spend your creative budget and what you can do yourself.

Why deadlines are your friend

In 1955 economist Cyril Northcote Parkinson explained the problem with work. He wrote in the Economist:

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion".

Creative work like writing or blogging is no exception.

Give yourself a week to write an article and you'll spend a week on it. Give yourself a month to record a song and you'll take a month. Give yourself five years to write a book and you could take six.

Instead by setting a deadline, artificial or otherwise, you can focus on what's most important. If you're struggling to meet your deadlines, these three practical tips could help.

Tip 1: Set an artificial deadline.
An editor typically gives a writer a deadline to work towards. He or she will say, "I need this article or a first draft by such and such a date".

If you don't have a deadline for your creative project, review your calendar and pick a date when you think you will complete things.

Tip 2: Focus on your next action
In the business world, many executives must decide on the next thing they need to do to advance a key project. This could be getting a quote from a supplier, phoning an interviewee to say they are hired or even posting a job advertisement.

For your project, it could be writing a headline, buying art supplies or doing keyword research.

Tip 3: Set-aside blocks of time for deep work
Lots of creative people like to put off their work until the last minute. They use a looming deadline to motivate themselves to get to work. Then, they pull all-nighters and work for hours on end.

This approach may be effective for some people, but if you're struggling to manage deadlines, don’t take that risk. Set aside an hour to each day when you will work on your book, album, painting or blog.

You can create for half an hour or an hour each day. Work like this and by the end of the week, you'll have spent up to 10 hours on your creative project. This is the same amount of time as somebody who pulls an all-nighter.

Want more tips? Check out this post that explains how I work.

Got questions about deadlines? Ask me below.