The Power of Self-Imposed Deadlines

Today’s article is about taking action.  One of the key elements of Create the Map is doing.  Not just thinking and dreaming, but actually doing.

• Do you ever have a tough time starting?
• Do you ever have a tough time finishing?
• Are you held back by feeling like you’re just not ready yet?
• Do you get frustrated by your ideas and dreams that you haven’t acted on?

If you answered yes to any one of these questions, then this article is for you.  Personally, I’ve answered yes to all of them at different times in my life.  They’re all issues I either deal with or have dealt with, so I can relate.  I want to talk today about the power of self-imposed deadlines.

A Lesson from Filmmaking: If You Want to Make a Movie, Then Pick a Date to Start Shooting

For about 4 years, I wanted to make a film. For some reason though, I found all kinds of excuses not to do it.  I had no real training.  There was no ideal time to make a film.  I couldn’t afford to take time away from working to make a film.  I didn’t have the money to make a film.  I didn’t have the equipment.  I didn’t have a film crew.  Even with all of these excuses, I couldn’t stop thinking about filmmaking, reading about filmmaking, and watching movies to study other filmmakers.

One day, I got really fed up with all the daydreaming, all the reading, and all the watching.  I got sick of spending all my creative time consuming other people’s work and ideas without contributing my own.  Then I remembered perhaps the best advice anyone has ever given me on filmmaking.

If you want to make a movie, then pick a date to start shooting. I followed the advice and picked a date to start shooting my film in October 2005.  Committing to a start date made all the difference.  Suddenly, I had a clear goal and a clear deadline.  I felt a drive to prove to myself that I could somehow arrange everything to live up to the self-imposed deadline I had set to start shooting.  This was no simple undertaking for me, and it involved a lot of changes.  I moved from New York back to Ohio where the two subjects of my documentary lived.  I assembled a crew from a couple of friends who had a similar interest in film but limited experience.  Prior to making the film, I had lived in NYC for 6 months working as a production assistant and location scout, so I asked a few people I had met for recommendations on equipment to buy.  I rounded up a small budget and made the best film possible with it.  I came up with a title for the film.  The bottom line is that once I had a start date, everything began to happen.  The wheels were in motion.  (And in case you’re curious, I probably never would have finished the film had I not also had a deadline in place to complete it.  I could have tweaked, massaged, refined, edited, and revised it forever, but a deadline helped me to reach completion.)

Don’t Wait for Someone Else to Give you a Deadline

There’ll always be someone else happy to give you a deadline. When you’re in school or in college, you have a teacher or professor who creates a deadline for you.  A due date for a paper.  An exam.  In your job, you have a boss who creates a deadline for you.  A due date for a project.  These kinds of deadlines are all necessary at times, and I’m not suggesting you ignore them.  In fact, they can be opportunities for you to create value and produce quality work.  But most often, if you really want to unleash your creative potential, you have to start anticipating needs, acting on your vision, and making your own unique contribution.  Sure, you can at times do this within the confines of other people’s deadlines, but more often than not, it’s going to take pushing yourself to meet your own deadlines and living up to your own idea of quality.

Set Your Own Deadlines

Self-imposed deadlines are your secret weapon.   This is true in your personal life, your professional life, and your creative life.  To create the map, you’re faced with the endless responsibility of choosing.  Choosing what matters.  Choosing how to spend your time.  Choosing what to start.  Choosing what to finish.  And choosing your own deadlines.  It’s an enormous and overwhelming responsibility, but if you’re serious about unleashing what’s inside, it’s a responsibility you have to accept.

Whatever it is that matters to you needs a deadline. A deadline for when you’ll start.  And then a deadline for when you’ll finish.  In Linchpin, Seth Godin talks at length about the concept of shipping, and I absolutely love it.  He says that “shipping means hitting the publish button on your blog, showing a presentation to the sales team, answering the phone, selling the muffins, sending out your references. Shipping is the collision between your work and the outside world.”* It’s about pushing through the perfectionist in you and just getting started, taking whatever steps are necessary to actually ship something.

Once you’ve set a deadline, then you simply do the best you can in the time you have available. Self-imposed deadlines help to make sure you don’t toy with ideas forever or let projects endlessly dangle half-finished.  For me, setting my own deadlines helps me to overcome my tendency to overthink and get bogged down by perfectionism.  I push myself to do the best I can in the time I have, even if that means it isn’t absolutely perfect.

Create the Map would not exist without my own self-imposed deadlines. I have two deadlines each week.  On Tuesdays, I have a deadline to publish an article.  And on Thursdays, I have a deadline to publish an interview.  As long as I stick to those deadlines, I’m fine.  Even if I don’t feel like it’s a masterpiece, sticking to the deadline is what counts.  Having a deadline is what helps me to actually hit the “publish” button for any article or interview I publish here.  There’s always that momentary hesitation where I think, “Could this be better?”  But I know I have to just let it go at a certain point in order to meet the deadline.  And once I’ve hit “publish,” sure I second-guess it at times, but I also trust that I’ve done the best I could.  My friend Joshua Harbert, creator of The Bright Army, recently shared with me that having deadlines for his blog posts have made all the difference for him as well.

The Best Time to Set Your Own Deadlines is Right Now

What are you waiting for? I bet there’s never going to be a perfect time to get started.  You’ll always have an excuse to wait.  You’ll probably never feel quite ready to take the plunge.  You’ll always feel like there’s one more book you should read, one more class you should take, more money you should save, etc.  But why not give this approach a try?  Think about that itch of an idea, dream, or passion you have.  It can be something big or small, just as long as it’s something you care about.  I dare you to set a deadline today to either get started on that idea or finish up that project that’s eating at you.

Check back this Thursday for my interview with Aaron Draplin, owner of the Draplin Design Co., where he talks about how he uses deadlines to make great work.

*Linchpin by Seth Godin, p. 103 (hardcover edition)
**About the photo above: I took this picture in downtown Chicago on July 3, 2010 while strolling around snapping pictures with Erin.

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