Without deadlines, actions drift.
The Problem
Actions like:
“Send meeting summary”
“Prepare report”
“Develop plan”
“Address customer complaint”
Often get delayed indefinitely.
What Time-Bound Means
Every action needs a clear deadline or due date.
Instead of the above use:
“Send meeting minutes to stakeholders by end of day.”
“Prepare report by 3pm Friday”
“Develop draft execution plan and distribute to team for endorsement at next week's meeting”
“Call customer today to understand their complaint. Then agree with marketing manager how the complaint will be addressed and inform the customer by the end of this week.”
Why Deadlines Matter
Time-bound actions:
- Create urgency: They tell the actioner when you need a result. Without this, actions drop to the bottom of the queue.
- Prioritise work: There's nothing like a deadline to focus someone's attention. "Urgent" items often get prioritised over "important" items. Use this to your advantage.
- Enable tracking: Compare the original with the current due date to see whether the slip is justified or whether intervention is required.
Quick Check
Ask yourself and the actioner:
- When is this action due?
- Is the deadline realistic?
- When can you have this action complete?
- Can you complete it by dd/mm/yyyy?
Tip #1
Align deadlines:
- To match the meeting cadence
- By understanding dependencies to other actions
- By acknowledging the actioner's workload
Tip #2
If everything is urgent then nothing is urgent. Provide focus for actioners by tightening due dates for critical tasks and relaxing the due-dates of less-important tasks. This demonstrates what really needs completing by next meeting.
Tip #3
Remember that whilst diamonds are created from pressure, submarines implode. You need to know in which paradigm you're operating...and every person in your team will be different.
Final Thought
An action without a deadline is just an idea...so give every action a due date.
Deadlines turn ideas into outcomes.
Thank you
If you've made it this far through this chunked S.M.A.R.T. blog series, please accept my sincere thanks. I hope you took away something you can implement in your daily professional life that helps you and your team achieve more tomorrow than you did yesterday.
Stay tuned for my next series: 5 Brainstorming Techniques that Accelerate Ideation.
The principles in this blog series are embedded in the CalculitX Project Action Tracker. This tool saves me 1 hour for every meeting I run (because it automates the creation of the Minutes) all whilst improving the quality of actions recorded and tracked. I haven't heard the excuse "Sorry. I didn't realise that was my action" for almost 2 decades.
Strong meetings create clear actions.
Great teams track them.
Use the CalculitX Project Action Tracker to close the gap.
#productivity, #projectmanagement, #meetingmanagement, #meetingminutes, #actionitems, #deadlines, #timemanagement.
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