Summary

You are probably used to interpreting deadlines as a control mechanism, especially since that’s how it seems to be in software development. Imagine seeing deadlines as an act of love! No, really! I believe we can make this happen together.

When you think of deadlines you likely think of deadline pressure. Most business environments make deadline pressure part of their culture. Moreover, as we talk more about folks having difficulties with executive function, we have become more aware of the challenges they have with deadlines, resulting in more acceptance but also more stigma. Given all this, the larger We has a complicated relationship with deadlines.

Fortunately, we have the chance to reframe this situation to make all this work more with us than against us. Join me!

I propose deadlines as an act of love. (I’ve made this sound saccharine and grandiose on purpose, so that you might remember it, but I also genuinely believe it to be true.) You might resist this and see deadlines as an attempt to control, a way for some folks to exert power over others, as an imposition on others’ time on one side of the transaction or as an unfair demand on the other side. Let’s reject all that!

(I mean, yes: some folks will try to wield deadlines as a weapon, but we don’t have to optimize for those folks, even if our financial situation might require us to tolerate and even accept them.)

I want people to give me clear deadlines for some straightforward reasons:

  • A deadline allows me to schedule my work.
  • A deadline allows me to judge reasonably accurately whether I can fulfill their request or not.
  • A deadline helps me infer something about how the requester sees the urgency of a request, if that’s not already clear.
  • A deadline helps me decide whether I can accept the cost of missing the deadline as compared to the cost of hitting it.

Framing the situation this way, people are doing me a favor by giving me a clear deadline!

I want to give other people clear deadlines because I want to give them the same clarity they give me. We can really decide to let it be that simple.

Beyond this, I can refer to the mounting experience of folks with executive function difficulties who need and even embrace the controled motivation associated with deadlines in order to actually get around to the task I’m asking them to do. This seems especially true when I’m asking them to do something that they would not otherwise do spontaneously, voluntarily, and happily.

In order for this to work, however, we need to reframe deadlines more generally.

I propose that we treat deadlines as statements of value or vulnerability about constraints, not as demands. The more of us who agree to do this, the better the whole system works, and the more harmoniously we can work and live together. You might notice that I’ve used words like “request” and “ask” here, rather than “requirement” or “demand”. I do this because, no matter how much you have been conditioned to believe in deadlines as demands and requirements, they are always requests and statements of value. “I need this by Friday” means “If you can’t do this for me by Friday, then I need to find someone else to do it, because its value to me after Friday drops to nothing”. Something like that. A person who gives you a deadline for a task is showing vulnerability by sharing with you something about the value of completing the task to them or about the constraints they face if they fail to deliver their work to someone else. They are trusting you to help them reach their objectives. They are hoping (often desperately!) that you will be able and willing to help them.

Yes, even when they are yelling or barking orders to take advantage of their positional authority over you. The yelling manager is often covering for insecurity about something they’re trying to deliver to someone else. If we show them compassion now, maybe they will learn to show us compassion later.

This feels different to me than it does to consider deadlines as a cynical attempt to extract more output from me sooner. Again: some folks will try to do this, but if you sense this, then you can fall back to this classic adage:

When you owe the bank $10 thousand, that’s your problem; when you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.

At some point, the person standing before you barking orders at you increasingly loudly, threatening you with deadline after deadline has to understand that they need you more than you need them. You can tell them this, even gently, but you can’t learn it for them.

Nonviolent communication practice encourages us to make clear requests to others so that they have enough information to decide safely and accurately how able they are to help us. This frees everyone up to act freely, to choice consciously, to say “yes” or “no” based on real constraints and capacity, rather than based on their mental relationship scorecard of accumulated unbalanced favors over time and the need to exert power over others in order to feel more in control of one’s own life. Clear deadlines represent a way to talk to each more honestly and gives us more space to react consciously.

We can turn deadlines into an act of love, but it starts with choosing to see deadlines as an act of love, even if buried under crusty layers of controling motivation and contempt. It starts with recognizing that a deadline is merely helpful information when we negotiate with someone to do a task for us. It starts with remembering that “no” is always an answer we can accept. (Right?)

That seems to me like a modest concession for a huge shared victory. What do you think?