Stop Working According to Due Dates
Many people assign due dates to all their tasks and then spend their whole work day completing the tasks that are due. This common habit would seem to lead to productivity, but in fact it leads to more stress and less productivity!
The alternative method of scheduling work is via focus cycles, which brings you more productivity as well as more happiness.
1. Fixed Time Vs Flexible Time Tasks
If you are like most people you assign due dates to most of your tasks. And if you are using any of the most popular task/project management systems, the tasks will pop up automatically on the assigned due date.
This seems like an efficient system, as you assign due dates to tasks when the tasks come in, and only need to think about the tasks again when the tasks pop up on their due date. But in reality, this system has many negative consequences that we will look at below. Also, there is a far better system for scheduling your tasks. This system is called Focus Cycles Work System. We will show the advantages and how to best use this system.
1.1. Fixed time tasks
When we are saying you should not assign due dates, we do not mean that you should not assign due dates to tasks that have to be done at a specific date and time. For example, if you have an appointment with the doctor on the 23rd of February at 10:00 am, you cannot come on the 22nd at 2:00 pm. A doctor’s appointment is a fixed time task. So you have to be there at the specific time. Therefore, you should schedule that appointment in your calendar for that date and time.
Similarly, a meeting with colleagues might be scheduled for February 25th at 9:00 am. So you have to be present at the exact time, not earlier not later, as meetings are also fixed time tasks.
Also, on your dad’s birthday you should not call him a day before or later. You should call him on the exact date. This is because birthdays, though not bound by the exact hour, are bound by the day, so again it is a fixed time task.
1.2. Semi-flexible time tasks
However, the vast majority of tasks are not strictly time bound. They do not need to be done at a specific date or time. At maximum they have a “due date”. A due date means that the task has to be done BY that date and not necessarily ON that date. These kinds of tasks we call semi-flexible time tasks.
Let us say you are bidding for a public tender for which the submission is on the 26th of February. That means you want to ensure that all tasks for the public tender are done between now and the 26th of February but not necessarily on the 26th of February itself.
In fact, if you set the due date for all of the required tasks on the 26th of February you will have a problem, as it will likely be impossible to accomplish all of the tasks within just one day. To avoid this you would have to assign due dates before the final deadline to the majority of tasks.
1.3. Flexible time tasks
Besides these tasks that are only due-date bound, you have tasks that have no time component whatsoever. These tasks you probably want to get done as soon as possible, but theoretically they still could wait for several weeks or months to come. So these tasks are not time bound, and thus should have no due date. We call these flexible time tasks.
1.4. Most task are not time bound
When we look at a typical task list of a knowledge worker, we find that while some tasks are time bound, most tasks are in fact not bound to a certain date. In particular, for entrepreneurs and creative people, such as musicians or artists, most tasks are not time bound. Yes, they need to do things as soon as possible because if they do not create, they will get no results. But there are few hard deadlines.
On the other hand, employees get more deadlines set by their bosses and team. But deadlines do not define the specific date a task has to be done but only a date by which a task needs to be done BY, which means most likely it has to be done several days earlier. So it is also not really fixed time.
Let us look at the typical distribution of tasks into time categories:
As you can see for most people the majority of tasks are either tasks to be done by a certain due date (semi-flexible) or tasks that should be done as soon as possible but have no specific execution date associated with them (flexible). In fact, for most people the time in meetings, appointments and other tasks bound to a specific time is less than 20%.
What we are recommending here is that you continue assigning due dates or specific time slots to fixed time tasks. But for tasks that are only bound by deadlines (semi-flexible) or tasks that do not have any time associated with them (flexible), you should stop assigning due dates, or at least not schedule your work according to them, as this has many drawbacks.
2. Problems of Scheduling Work by Due Dates
Assigning dates for tasks that have to be done on a certain date is not a problem. The problem comes when people assign due dates to tasks that have to be done, and then treat them like execution dates, because the deadline date is different from the execution date. Relevant for you should be when you have to work on the task, meaning the execution date, not the last day of the deadline.
These are the main problems that people experience when they are only setting due dates instead of execution date and when they use the due dates to determine their work schedule:
● Wrong time planning
● Lack of flexibility
● Stress
● Lack of deep work
● Missed deadlines
2.1. Wrong time planning
When you are setting due dates, and using one of the most popular task/project management systems, the task will pop up again on the day of the due date. The problem with this is, that many people set due dates as the final deadline. So when many tasks pop up on the final day, it is too late to get all of those tasks executed.
Being aware of this problem, many people have learned to set the due date earlier than the final deadline. But then they might set it too early or still too late. Or they set all of the due dates on the same date so that on some days they might have little work on others a lot.
The real problem is that at the time of writing down the due dates you do not have all the information yet, to know which is the best date to work on a certain task.
2.2. Lack of flexibility
People that assign due dates to all or most of their tasks, will find themselves working almost exclusively according to due dates. They have to keep up every day with tasks that have the due date “Today”.
This does not permit them the flexibility to choose tasks that might be more appropriate for the moment. For example, if you just have a brilliant idea at work, you might want to divert some attention to that idea, and push back other tasks. But this might not be possible if you have many tasks with due dates “Today”.
2.3. Stress
Working with many upcoming due dates can become very stressful. Even if you are a creative person or an entrepreneur and you have thus chosen to be your own boss, it can easily feel like you are a slave to due dates. So you get stressed.
2.4. Lack of deep work
When you have many upcoming due dates it is hard to get into a state of flow or a state of deep work, a state where you have the maximum level of productivity.
That is why many people feel that they are best able to get into this productive state, when they get rid of their to-do list that tells them what they HAVE TO DO, and instead just write down in the morning what they WANT to work on.
2.5. Missed deadlines
When you have many due dates it would seem that you would be less likely to miss deadlines but in fact the opposite is true; you are more likely to miss deadlines. For two reasons: One, people often set due dates as deadline dates, which leads them to come up with a huge list of tasks on the date of the deadline that is impossible to complete.
Second, when you have your fixed time tasks, such as meetings, mixed with your flexible time tasks, you are more likely to lose sight of the tasks that really have fixed time.
For all of the above reasons, we strongly recommend to not work according to a schedule based on due dates.
3. Benefits of Not Scheduling Work by Due Dates
There are many benefits of not working according to due dates, most of which follow from the above discussion of the drawbacks of due dates:
● Freedom
● Flexibility
● Deep work and less stress
3.1. Freedom
When you do not set due dates for tasks that are not time bound, you will have much less tasks pop up every day with the “Today” due date.
That means that you have much more time for yourself. But in fact it is also the best time to be productive and happy at the same time.
3.2. Flexibility
When you leave the execution date open, you are able to decide spontaneously, either in the morning or just before the task execution, what you want to work on. That gives you flexibility to take into account factors like work load, work environment, external factors, your own concentration as well as what you most feel like working on.
3.3. Deep work and less stress
A nice side effect of having less tasks with a due date “Today” is that you feel less stressed. While you might think that this leads to doing less work, it is my experience that this often leads to the deepest and most productive work.
4. Problem of No Work Scheduling
Above we have seen the many benefits of not assigning the work according to due dates. However, what happens if you just do not do any scheduling whatsoever? You just leave all your tasks unclassified according to time, and leave yourself the flexibility to get any tasks done at any time.
This maximum flexibility is very problematic as well! The main problems are:
● Not knowing what to work on next
● Procrastination
● Stress
● Lack of structure
4.1. Not knowing what to work on next
The obvious problem in not doing any work scheduling is that you do not know what to work on next. And if you want to determine what to work on next each time you are about to start a new task, it can be time consuming just to find out what are the most valuable things to work on.
4.2. Procrastination
Related to the above, is that for many people not having the work scheduled in advance leads to procrastination. This is because they look at their huge task list and get demotivated by the sheer size of it and then decide to do nothing.
4.3. Stress
While some people start procrastinating without a work schedule, many others feel stress. They see their huge task list and get a sense that they need to do everything as soon as possible, and this makes them stressed.
4.4. Lack of structure
Finally, not determining work schedules ahead of time means that you are missing structure. Structure is the opposite of flexibility. While it is great to have the flexibility to determine your own tasks and projects and when exactly to work on them, this lack of structure is also negative and leads to less productivity, procrastination and unhappiness.
This is especially true for people that are not bound by an external structure, like creative people or entrepreneurs.
Nowadays, even more and more employees are working from home without any direct supervisor and thus lack the external structure. With less external structure it is even more important to have some internal structure coming from a work schedule. So it is important to balance flexibility with structure.
For all these reasons, while we recommend not to work according to a schedule set by due dates, we also strongly encourage you to make a work schedule.
5. Using Focus Cycles for Work Scheduling
If you should make a work schedule but you should not get your work schedule from due dates, then how do you do it? The answer a is FOCUS CYCLES. Focus cycles are short time periods that are preceded by a planning session and ended by a review session. During the focus cycle you only focus on the execution of the work that you have preplanned.
You have different lengths of focus cycles:
● Month
● Week
● Day
● Work session (or Pomodoro session)
All of these are important and should be used in combination for your work scheduling.
Work scheduling by focus cycles combine all the benefits and none of the drawbacks of both not scheduling work at all as well as scheduling according to due dates.
5.1. Scheduling work with Focus Cycles
This is how scheduling with focus cycles works:
● Create all the tasks. Do this by looking at your big goals, splitting them into projects, splitting projects into tasks and tasks into actionable subtasks. This first step creates a well structured but extremely large list of tasks containing everything that you want to accomplish.
● Next you want to split the overall task list into different focus cycles:
○ First, select which task you want to get done this month, and which ones will stay in the list of tasks to be done in the future. (monthly plan)
○ Second, every week at the beginning of the week look at the remaining tasks in the monthly task lists and select tasks for this particular week. (weekly plan)
○ Third, everyday look at the remaining tasks in the weekly task list and select tasks to be done on this day. (daily plan)
○ Finally, rearrange daily tasks in the order of execution and then only focus on execution. (execution plan)
5.2. Why is work scheduling by Focus Cycles so powerful?
I have been using work scheduling in different levels of focus cycles as explained above for a long time and have been advising others to do the same. Me and others have seen enormous benefits of being more focused, more organized, more productive and happier.
5.2.1. Focus
One of the main benefits of working with focus cycles is the increased focus. This comes because on the one hand you do not have too many “Today” due dates interrupting your work flow and on the other hand you constantly know what to work on next.
● During the day you are only focused on your daily tasks and you can forget everything else.
● During the week you are only focused on the weekly tasks, and you can forget everything else.
● During the month you are only focused on the monthly tasks, and you can forget everything else.
● This way you can achieve the highest level of focus. That is why the time intervals are called focus cycles.
5.2.2. Planning in stages
The problem with due dates is not so much assigning them, but planning your work schedule around them. Especially if due dates are deadlines that are not supposed to be execution dates.
But even if people assign due dates independent of deadlines, as a kind of execution date, they do not work, for the main reason that they are set too early, when it is still not possible to determine the right execution time.
Even worse is the work scheduling with a calendar and thus assigning not only a date but also a fixed time to tasks that by nature are time flexible tasks. We have written about the danger of this in this article:
“Planning with a Calendar? This Advice Will Skyrocket your Productivity!”
Setting an execution date or even a time in advance at the point the tasks comes in, is too early, as you do not have all the information about the perfect scheduling yet.
Focus cycles based work scheduling determines the perfect work schedule in an incremental way, the more information you have the more precise you will schedule.
● Beginning month: only determine the work for the next 30 days at a general level, without specifying the week.
● Beginning week: only determine the work for the next 7 days at a general level, without specifying the day.
● Beginning day: only determine work for the next 24 hours at a general level without specifying the time.
● Pomodoro session: determine the specific task to work on next.
So focus cycles planning allows you to plan exactly the right time horizon from very broad to very precise, in several incremental steps.
5.2.3. Summary of Benefits
In summary there are these enormous benefits of scheduling work by using focus cycles:
● Ideal balance flexibility and structure
● Less stress
● More focus
● More productivity
5.2.4. Workiamo Focus Tool
The challenge of scheduling work according to different levels of focus cycles is that it is quite complicated and time consuming to do the monthly, weekly, and daily work schedule, especially if you are working on several projects simultaneously as for every cycle you have to transfer tasks from the more general to the more specific cycle: monthly -> weekly -> daily -> execution schedule.
Existing task and project management tools allow to set due dates, but have no easy way to integrate focus cycles. For that reason we developed a specific tool for work scheduling by focus cycles, called Workiamo.
Workiamo is a very simple tool that is ideal for anybody that wants to be less stressed and more productive. As you are reading this, we let you access it for lifetime for free! In order to do so, you have to register at www.workiamo.com by entering this code: ILOVEWORK.
