Meet your deadlines better: Tips & Tricks

Chasing deadlines has always been a struggle since school days. Poor management skills and delay in performing tasks often lead to hasty sessions that produces poor-quality work. Similarly, failing to meet deadlines at work create bad reputation, and your reputation is generally based on two factors: the quality of work you produce and how well you meet deadlines?

In this article we will discuss, how professionals can learn effective tips and tricks in order successfully meet deadlines.

  

-Don't overcommit

Professionals who commit a deadline but later realize that they have overcommitted on a project then need to stress and exhaust themselves to meet deadlines. This becomes difficult and impossible to make it, therefore ensure that you commit a reasonable deadline. Think about all factors that should include - how much work needs to be done, how much time you can commit per day considering daily activities such as sleeping, eating, etc. Suggesting alternative dates which will give you more control, enable deadlines and creates less stress.

- Segment your project

Working on a large project can be nightmare to meet deadline, therefore segmenting the project down into smaller projects (per-day tasks) keeping a deadline for each - can limit the long-term exhaustion that comes when dealing with large projects. Start with bigger tasks and segment them into individual tasks having a daily deadline. Segmenting your project will gradually build into sizeable progress which then leads into the completion of the project meeting exact deadlines.

- Schedule daily tasks 

The best advice for any project, is to tackle it into smaller pieces. Schedule daily tasks that will give you a clear idea of how long a project will take. This will eliminate delays, and if you finish prior to the deadline, the client will be very impressed. So, instead of tackling the entire project- it is recommended to plan daily tasks e.g. few hours to research, some to perform, another to look for errors and the final hour to make it look good. By doing this you ensure your mind is in the right place(focused) to perform each tasks. 

- Keep a soft deadline

Sticking to the deadline provided by the client is good, but unexpected events can create a mess even with the most solid plan. Unforeseen problems can include hard drive crashes, absence of crucial member due to bad health issue, or amendments requested by your client. Of course, it's next to impossible to plan for every such possibilities, hence the best defense is to keep a soft deadline for your project. For instance, if your project has a three-week deadline, keep a soft deadline to complete it 2-3 days early that the actual deadline. Similarly, for a three-month long project, plan to have it done 10 days early. By setting a soft deadline, you get spare time to deal with unexpected events, if any.
 

- Get Organized 

Your project can be delayed due to many reasons, just because it is not organized. You schedule daily tasks and have number of deadlines, hence it is essential to have a technology on place. Manually making notes for each task and deadline will be exhausting and can lead to confusions, too. However, implementing a cloud-based project management software solution will help you record, share and edit tasks and files amongst team members, which makes working in a team a breeze.

Workhive - an easy project management app is proving to be a bliss to help employees, freelancers, contractors and project managers (working from different locations or even different time zones) collaborate and manage multiple projects as well as keep a track on tasks of what they need to get done. Offering an easy-to-use dashboard, Workhive allows real-time visibility of all projects in a single screen to increase productivity. To know more, please visit www.workhiveapp.com

In Closing

With the above tips and tricks, and implementing a cloud-based project management software solution, you'll make deadlines a cakewalk.

Godspeed!