If You Aren’t Making Your Deadline…

Tell the people
who are depending on that deadline.

My editor is in demand.
Every moment of her time
is scheduled.

As soon as I know
I won’t make my deadline,
I won’t send her
the manuscript in time
(this is rare
as I build in big buffers),
I let her know.

She can then
rearrange her schedule.
That creates a gap later
for when I DO send her
the manuscript.

If I didn’t tell her,
she wouldn’t have that gap.
I would likely be waiting
for months
and that would make
my schedule even more
of a mess.

Seth Godin
shares
“Wishful thinking is
sometimes confused
with optimism,
but you probably knew
more than four days
before the deadline
that you weren’t going
to meet expectations.
If people are building dependencies
around your promises,
then waiting until
you have no choice
simply makes the miss worse.”

If you aren’t making your deadline,
suck it up
and
tell the people depending
on that deadline being met.