People procrastinate. There are ways to push others to make deadlines
3 Things: People put things off. And next thing you know, they didn’t hit their deadline
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - It’s a busy time of year.
Maybe you’ve got a to-do list for people at work before they head out for the holidays.
But, people put things off. And next thing you know, they didn’t hit their deadline.
There’s actually one thing you can stop doing that will speed things up, though.
We’ve got three things to know.
Thing one is how researchers figured this out.
This is based on a study out of the University of Otago.
People were asked to complete an online survey to give a donation to charity. They were given either a one week, one month, or no deadline to respond.
Thing two is what happened.
The people who were given the one-month deadline had the lowest amount of responses.
The people who weren’t given a deadline had the highest amount of responses.
Why is that?
That’s thing three.
The lead author says he wasn’t surprised by this.
He says a longer deadline gives people the impression it isn’t urgent, so they procrastinate.
Then, they just forget to do it.
But giving no deadline may have given an impression of some urgency.
So, next time you assign someone a task or ask them to do something, don’t give them a deadline. It may get done sooner.
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