Deadlines
Why is respecting deadlines important? Finishing what there has to be done on time allows us to rely on each other. In my case, deadlines have sometimes been a problem, mainly because I tried doing way too many things at once. This is because I sometimes start things without taking into account the time required to complete that task.
I believe that, in order for deadlines to be kept, there has to be at least some external motivator – a consequence for failing. There always are consequences, of course, but in addition to that I'm going to implement the following plan…
Here's the plan:
In cases where money are involved (because that's what I'm mainly talking about), a reward for finishing on time (or sooner) must be applied when:
- Finishing very early, in 20% less time: 10% of income allocated to pleasure spending
- Finishing in 0–20% of time: 5% of money allocated to pleasure spending
And also a penalty for being late:
- 0–20% more time: 5% penalty
- 20% more time: 10% penalty
What happens to penalty money? Well, it goes back to the customer, or, in other cases, it goes to a cause I don't like or disagree with (the Church for instance).
Starting from now on, this is how I plan to become better at not missing deadlines and finishing stuff on time.
POST#0056 2009-JAN-16
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Commentary (2):
COMM#12393 2009-JAN-21
fusion5 wrote:
Sorin: Thanks for the comment, it's a very interesting link.
I also found this (it's just common sense about deadlines): http://freelanceswitch.com/…-a-deadline/
Dragos
COMM#12392 2009-JAN-17
An anonymous commenter wrote:
Deadlines are a never-ending issue because there are too many external factors that can influence them, especially when working in a team. That's why maybe you should always give yourself 20–25% more time than you know it is needed, just to be safe.
Also, if you are interested in reading more about this subject .. give a look over this Andy Szekely's article : http://www.andyszekely.ro/…e-2009–01–08 (it is in Romanian) … maybe it will help.
Regards
Sorin