FreelanceFolder: Probably nothing else in the freelancing experience creates as much stress as deadlines.
If a freelancer tells you they are up against a deadline, then you know that it’s time to back off and give them some space so that they can get your work done.
We all have deadlines, but we rarely talk about them. Yet, there’s quite a lot to talk about.
22 comments:
A typo in this article - "give them some space so that they can get your work done" I believe the author meant "get their work done" but it is interesting to think about. When we hire freelance designers they are doing the work for the entire production. So is it "your" work, "our" work, or "their" work? I believe that it is all; I am working for the designer just as much as they are working for me. We coexist and we should give employees space, so that they can get "yours, mine and ours." work done. If we are constantly hovering over their shoulders, poking them, asking them when they will be done, I don't think the work will be to its highest potential.
It is not comforting to know that deadlines will never stop - but it does provide a dose of reality. The types of deadlines experienced here will very possibly carry over into our chosen jobs once we graduate. Not only this; they will be much more real. The prospect of losing one's job is far more daunting than turning one assignment in late. Sure, there are consequences for that, but they are often fixable and people tend to be understanding as long as it is not a recurring trend. In the real world, people may look down upon your work ethic if you miss deadlines. And perception can be the make it or break it factor in getting the position you want. However, this article is important, because it reminds us all to develop good habits now so they may carry over into our careers.
Deadlines are part of life. We all might as well get use to it as I don't ever see it changing. We can all make the best of it if we learn to prioritize from the beginning. I personally like to go in stages. Being in technical theatre, this is usually what happens anyway, but leaving room for problems, that almost always occur, is important in this kind of work. "The show must go on" as they say so we don't have much room for missing a deadline. Getting done early only leaves us more room to perfect what we have already been working on. Deadlines aren't a bad thing really. They help us prepare for success which is what we all strive for in the first place.
I think that this article is good in that it draws one's attention to working and independently figuring out how to best manage clients and the task at hand. Deadlines have certain connotations and they are threatening to different people to certain degrees but they are so important. Really, a deadline can be the breaking point as to whether or not someone should be hired or recommended for work. Making a deadline and producing satisfying work in that allotted time separates regular people and great workers who know what they are doing and who can keep track of their lives, essentially. I have had my run ins with a few bad deadlines and I'm sure I'll run into a few more in the future. We are beings of error but it is always something that should be considered as we plan for the future.
This article provides and interesting overview over the different types of deadlines and how to deal with them. I found the section "How to Make Sure You Meet Your Deadlines" helpful in some aspects but largely common sense. The other sections presented newer ideas that were more helpful. The bit about notifying a client as soon as possible if you think you are going to miss a deadline is one that I think is incredibly important... things get exponentially more terrible the later someone finds out that a job isn't going to get done when it was supposed to be.
Deadlines are horrible things we have to deal with in life but it's something that never stops. I've always been good about meeting deadlines but this article was helpful none the less. I personally liked the section about negotiating deadlines. It's something I've never had to do but I'm sure I'll have to deal with it in the future. And I'm pretty sure I'll be bad at it but these tips look helpful.
This article is full of helpful advice. The thing that stands out the most to me is that if you aren't going to make a deadline, and you know that before you've accepted the project, it might be a good idea to refer the client to someone else, instead of taking the job anyway and killing yourself to try and make the deadline. I can see a lot of people doing that, maybe even working overnight, and pushing themselves so much they become sick. Sure, some jobs or amounts of money are worth that, but not everything, and it is important to know when to say no. And it is likely the client will respect you for being honest, and you can then keep in contact and possibly get a better job from them later.
I find every article about "life management," stress management, productivity, time management etc. extremely helpful and a wonderful reminder! This article about deadlines makes some wonderful points, both based in common sense and some that I hadn't really thought of before, like the point about setting a personal deadline for a day or two before the real deadline, so your work is done early. I think that's a wonderful point that, while obvious in retrospect, I've never thought of!
No doubt the writer of this article was under a deadline and didn't have time to proofread well enough to find the typo! Deadlines are a part of life, but they don't have to be frightening. In the real world, you usually know what needs done and can adjust your schedule to make it happen. I generally plan ahead and find it annoying when another project is added simply to crunch the time, but I do understand its purpose. In school, in attempt to teach students how to handle deadlines an assignment may be adjusted to force a rush job which with good planning would not be a rush job. This is good on occasion to see how the student handles the pressure, but used repeatedly, the quality of the work over time will tend to decline. In the long run, employees who deliver acceptable if not exceptional work under an artificially tight deadline, may finally decide that acceptable is good enough and never attain exceptional again. In the real world, you may be forced to work with someone who decides they need things at the last minute so learning to work within a tight deadline is good training, on an occasional basis. I generally feel that others lack of planning is not something I should have to fix. However, I do realize that this may happen in my chosen profession. This article has many good ideas on how to deal with the stress of deadlines. If you are not a procrastinator, tight deadlines are not usually a problem in the real world. The most important item in my opinion is to notify the client if you realized that you are gong to miss the deadline. Being silent and waiting until the last minute in the hopes that by some miracle you will complete the task just compounds the problem. The suggestions offered by the article are wise both for employees and students.
Gee, I wish we could negotiate our deadlines like they do in the real world! Granted, we can ask for extensions if we do so reasonably in advance of the deadline, but it's not quite the same as explaining that the work simply can't be done in the allotted time. I always feel somewhat bad when I hand something in knowing that while it is ontime, it's nowhere near as good as it could have been had I had the time I needed. The advice is good though, and helpful for planning time. I wish they would tell you what the best way to keep motivation is once you've missed a deadline, since that's often the hardest time as far as work goes, and getting it in as soon as possible.
Deadlines are interesting because really you could call any part of organizing work or time a "deadline". 8:40am is my deadline to be ready to leave the house i the morning. Each homework assignment has a deadline and every coupon, every library book, every car safety inspection. While analyzing deadlines there are more than just the few types in the article. The advice given to make sure you meet those deadline were really general and could've been tips for anything. Be well rested, work smart, take it one step at a time. But as a whole I thought it was well laid out and provided a nice list of tips.
I don't think that deadlines are a horrible part of life, but necessary. I would so much rather have somebody tell me exactly when they would like to have/see something than having them tell me 'whenever' and leaving it up to me to determine when exactly that should be. I think one of the biggest obstacles of meeting a deadline is overcoming the stress of a big project enough to buckle down and get started. A lot of times people will procrastinate in starting a big project, which immediately throws the tips of getting rest and breaking a larger project into smaller pieces out the window. It seems that organization and preparation are some of the biggest tools to avoiding stress on any size project.
Deadlines are built into our way of being, into our culture. I have to pay my bill by a certain day. If I don't do that, I'll get fined. Same thing applies to the workplace. Yes, there are deadlines? Do I have to complete the thing for that time? No.
But if I don't do the thing by the time that it is needed my reputation and the outcome of that entire project is put in severe jeopardy. Something that I've been pondering a lot lately is the reasoning behind why we internally prioritize things in a certain fashion. Is it based off of intrinsic motivation to complete the task? Or is there some extrinsic motivation, such as a pay raise or grade, to have us complete a task by a certain time.
What happens to someone's motivation when they realize that the repercussions are not as detrimental to their extrinsic motivators as they had originally thought?
Managing deadlines is certainly difficult for a freelancer, but it si similarly difficult for a large organization as well, and many of these suggestions apply there too. At the two major shops I've worked at, there have been very different relationships with deadlines. In New York, deadlines were established internally as targets, but with a small amount of slack and adjustability. While everyone was focused on the deadline, they didn't allow it to cause any more stress than strictly necessary. They maintained a separate notion of 'target deadline' and 'client deadline.' At another shop, the client deadline was translated directly into the internal deadline, partly as a function of management style and partly as a function of the type of client they worked with. At this job, there was much more stress relating to meeting targets and accomplishing everything in time. In the end, substantially more got spend rushing deliveries or on overtime in order to deliver on time.
Oh deadlines... unfortunately, not something that will go away after graduation. Though the article is not revolutionary, it does illuminate some of the things we already do in studio (or should do in studio), all of which are absolutely worthwhile habits to keep: breaking the project into smaller pieces, setting daily goals WITH those smaller pieces, and PLANNING on going over your EARLY deadline because, let's face it, mistakes will happen and obstacles will come out of nowhere. Starting the project, even a little, as soon as it is assigned is a great idea that I'm trying to do more often, because it DOES help establish how much work is ahead and how I should budget my time accordingly. Finally, backing up you work is a huge must in studio. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the same sob story: I lost my flash drive, it had my rhino model on it, I can't find it, and I have to pull a week of all lighters to recreate said model.
back up your work
I think perhaps these are the types of things many students already deal with often enough, but aren't putting into the the freelancer context. Every homework assignment has a deadline. And sometimes we hand them in late, and we have to deal with that. Sometimes we ask for extensions, and we know if we do that ahead of time we have a better chance of getting extra time. And we know that we build good will from our "clients" by displaying a consistent quality of work. If only one assignment is late in a semester, then the professor could be more understanding than one assignment per month.
The context that I put this article in during the explanation of types of deadlines was that of a shop that builds a show. I think you can find jobs of all of these types in a typical shop (with the possible exception on recurring deadlines). Certainly commercial scene shops face rush deadlines, one time deadlines, and phased deadlines, with phased being the preferred method. I think when placed in that context the article makes a lot more sense for what we do. Negotiating deadlines can be done and is a good thing to discuss, but ultimately a shop is expected to have a set there in time for tech, with opening as a usual hard deadline (but we all know things are added after opening rather frequently). The tips on meeting deadlines can all be transferred into this shop mindset as well. And the tips for missing a deadline are also pretty transferable. Although I would say that discounts for a missed deadline should be more of a real thing for shops than this article implies. Obviously its not something that the shop will want to do, but may be necessary to preserve the relationship since the company may be losing great deals of money for late set peices.
I think maintaining deadlines is incredibly important in almost anything we do. And deadlines aren't always pretty, such as rush deadlines.
However, if a deadline is not going to be met--tell the client! The "it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission" mentality does not work with deadlines because somebody else will always be affected if you miss your deadline. That's why deadlines are so important--they do not just affect you, but everyone involved in a certain project.
I stress out about deadlines weekly, daily, and hourly. I’m in college, for Christ’s sake, the consummate, ultimate trainer of dealing with deadlines. As most humans in this world, I have dealt with deadlines before. It’s something that begins at a very early stage in life. When you’re little and your mother tells you to get yourself ready to go somewhere you’re dealing with a deadline. And as we grow, our deadlines grow with us. I was taught to deal with them by writing them down, prioritizing them and then getting them done. I thought I was doing pretty well until I got to college, when I encountered so many deadlines that I sleep and dream about them. I still write them down and prioritize them, and that helps a lot. I try to deal with them one at a time, but sometimes I feel like they’re all attacking me at once.
Kassondra and Page bring up a good point. We often forget that here in school it isn't the end of the world if you turn one assignment in late, but in real life if you turn in a set of elevations one or two days late you have just screwed over a good number of the production staff and design team. Maybe this is just my perspective now because I haven't had a show assignment where the deadlines are less flexible, but it's nice to occasionally be reminded that deadlines are realer than we like to make them.
Deadlines are ofter viewed as the enemy. While, I think that deadlines can actually be used as a tool.
In planning my week, I look at the order of deadlines as well as assign personal deadlines to tasks. This way, the list of To-Do becomes less of a novel and more of a short story in that each day it becomes clear what is the priority .
However, if you are working from dealing to deadline, it becomes more about finishing than it does about doing the work itself.
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