What To Do When You've Run Out Of Time

There's an interesting aspect of time management that is very rarely discussed. Everyone presumes that with a bit of training and a lot of organisation, you'll always have the skills to manage your time effectively and never run out of it. There are some incidents that happen in working lives though, that mean you really do run out of time. What do you do then? No time management guru can help you - you're already too late, the clock has ticked its way down, the deadline is here. It's not the end of the world - and if it happens often, that's a clear indication that you've not managed your time - but never mind that. Let's see what can be done when there's no time to be had.

Extensions

Most bosses will grant extensions to staff - there is no project that doesn't account for unforeseen circumstances such as sickness, lack of suppliers and so on. As soon as you realise that you've not got enough time to make a deadline, then tell your manager. The more advance notice they have, the more they will feel comfortable extending your deadline. If you do it the day before, it's not going to get you much respect. If it happens more than once, you're going to worry your superiors.

Delegation

Many people feel a little ashamed when they know that they are being relied upon to meet a deadline and they realise that they're not going to do it. Don't let pride ruin your project - are there any other colleagues or other skilled staff who you can turn to for help? As with deadline extensions, this shouldn't have to happen often, but many people will be more than happy to roll their sleeves up and muck in to get a job done: especially if the whole business is depending on it. You can delegate some tasks out without feeling like you're letting the side down. Later down the line, someone else might be in the same position and you can feel all right when taking over some of their work for them.

Reshuffling

Very often in a project, the job that you're thinking of as a whole only has certain parts of it that apply to a strict deadline. For example, if you're building a website - you need to get the content to the webmaster in order for them to build it. That's the deadline. But do you need to renew the domain name or prepare your marketing emails before this is done? Probably not - they can wait a few days. Learning to divide and prioritise will see where what little time you have left needs to go.

Move on!

We all miss deadlines sometimes - it's an inevitable part of business. Treat it as a learning curve instead of an absolute disaster. Ask for feedback on what you could have done better, and seek to give feedback to other factors, (did you have to rely on a third party?) where delays had let you down. Use the opportunity to improve next time. A problem dissected is a problem improved the second time around. Turn what you perceive to be a failure into a feedback opportunity, and you'll feel much better about it, very quickly. Dwelling on the problems, instead of the solutions, will put more pressure on you next time. Relax, move on, and go forward to that next deadline.