“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by“.
Douglas Adams.
This makes me smile because it reminds me of the whooshing noise my emails make when I hit send.
A deadline is a marvellous thing. There’s nothing like having to have completed something by a specific time to make are you get it done.
In the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Arthur and Ford had a very short deadline to meet before the Earth was blown up to make way for a hyperspace bypass. They needed to drink all of that beer and hitch a lift – just in time!
Yesterday I wrote about Brave and about how Merida had a goal, a plan and a timescale and how it was really important for her to accomplish what she needed to do within the time limit. If she’d failed, her Mam would still be a bear (or worse) and she’d have had to marry one of those hopeless princes…
For us, it’s unlikely that we’d have such pressing things to sort out in such short timeframes, but the idea of having a time to complete something is still just as relevant. In our home we eat at 6pm so I know that in order to have dinner on the table at the right time I’m going to have to start cooking at around 5 (depending what I’m making of course) We all have presents which must be wrapped before Christmas Day. We need to get up at a certain time to leave the house and arrive wherever we need to be on time in the morning. Deadlines are not a concept we find hard to grasp in everyday life.
When you’re setting your goals, there’s nothing like a time frame to spur you on. This will show you when your goal will be reached – and you wouldn’t want to delay that would you? How wonderful to have an idea of when you will have accomplished the thing which you’ve set out to achieve. You could even plan in a reward for each step of the process. Whatever it takes to help you get from where you are now to where you want to be.
You don’t want to get to that deadline and have it whoosh by because you didn’t take enough action.So make sure that it’s realistic and get going. You know when your goal will be realised so you can start with confidence in the end result.
When do you expect to accomplish your goal?