You Are on Deadline – Get Finished! (Until You Get it Finished, You’re Not…Finished)

An interruption is anything that prevents the start-to-finish completion of a critical task…
Timothy Ferris, The 4-Hour Workweek:  Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

When there’s less time to work, you waste less time. When you have a compressed workweek, you tend to focus on what’s important. Constraining time encourages quality time.
Jason Fried:  Be More Productive. Take Time Off.

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Now, I’m a big fan of creative, empty-your-mind-to-ponder kind of time.  We all have ways we do this – some play video games, some surf the web, some sit and daydream.  A fair number of folks like to sit in a Starbucks with iPad on, and just think about stuff.

I’m not talking here about a person doing nothing.  I’m talking about a person doing something while appearing to do nothing.  There is a big difference.

And this is valuable, critical.  If you do not think about your work, then when you do your work you will not be all that effective.  In fact, this is a critical piece of the leader’s task:  thinking about the work so that the work can then be done more effectively.

But…, after you have spent your time doing nothing, it’s time to do something.

Once you know the task at hand, get to it.  Let nothing distract you.  Pretend you are on deadline, and get it done.

I seem to be reading a lot about this these days.  The 37 Signals guys have started giving small teams very tight deadlines.  (Sorry – I did not bookmark the source on this).

The idea is this:  work as though you are almost, nearly, out of time.  And then you will get your work done.

The constraint of a limited amount of time means that you have to get it finished.  And getting finished really is the big, big deal in getting stuff…finished.