The central theme of this episode revolves around the intricate psychology of deadlines and how individual perceptions of time pressure can vastly differ. As we, Ben and Syya, delve into this topic, we explore the notion that people are indeed the unpredictable X factor in both business and life, often surprising us with their responses to urgency, some thrive under pressure, while others falter. Through candid discussions and personal anecdotes, we illuminate how our distinct approaches to deadlines influence our productivity and interactions. This conversation not only prompts introspection regarding one's own time management strategies but also highlights the necessity for understanding varying behaviors in professional contexts.

Join us as we dissect these dynamics, offering insights that are both thought-provoking and applicable to everyday business scenarios. The discourse intricately navigates the profound psychological dimensions of deadlines, elucidating how they serve as both facilitators and constraints within the business milieu.

Ben and Syya engage in a compelling dialogue that juxtaposes their divergent approaches to deadline management, revealing the intricate interplay between personal temperament and professional obligations. The narrative unfolds through personal anecdotes, wherein Ben articulates his proclivity for meticulous planning and preemptive execution, underscoring the psychological comfort derived from early completion. In contrast, Syya offers a candid reflection on the propensity to operate under pressure, illuminating the paradoxical nature of anxiety and creativity that deadlines can invoke. This dichotomy not only fosters a deeper understanding of individual working styles but also posits that acknowledging one's unique approach to deadlines is pivotal in optimizing productivity and collaboration in the workplace.

Furthermore, the conversation delves into the broader implications of deadlines on interpersonal dynamics, particularly in a team context. The hosts emphasize the necessity for leaders to cultivate an awareness of their team members' varying responses to deadlines, advocating for a nuanced approach to project management that accommodates diverse working styles.

By highlighting the importance of transparent communication regarding expectations and timelines, Ben and Syya advocate for a culture of accountability and mutual respect, which ultimately enhances the collaborative spirit within organizations.

The episode culminates in a profound recognition that while deadlines may be arbitrary constructs, their psychological weight significantly influences both individual performance and collective efficacy, urging listeners to reflect on their own relationship with time and productivity in the ever-evolving landscape of business. In a thought-provoking exploration of the psychology surrounding deadlines, Ben and Syya dissect the multifaceted nature of time management within the business sphere. Drawing from personal experiences, they illuminate the contrasting methodologies individuals employ in meeting deadlines, thereby fostering a dialogue that resonates with a wide audience. Ben’s steadfast commitment to early completion is juxtaposed with Syya’s inclination to thrive under the pressure of impending deadlines, offering listeners a comprehensive framework for understanding the psychological nuances that underpin these approaches. This episode not only serves as a catalyst for introspection regarding one’s own deadline strategies but also encourages a broader discourse on the implications of these strategies for organizational culture and effectiveness. The hosts further probe the emotional ramifications of deadlines, acknowledging how the looming specter of a deadline can evoke stress or serve as a motivational tool, depending on one’s psychological disposition. They advocate for a more empathetic understanding of how various personality types interact with deadlines, suggesting that leaders should adapt their management styles to accommodate these differences.

Through this lens, the episode invites listeners to reconsider the role of deadlines not merely as markers of time but as pivotal elements that shape workplace dynamics and individual well-being. Ultimately, Ben and Syya’s insightful conversation provides a rich tapestry of ideas that encourages listeners to reflect on the nature of their professional relationships with deadlines, urging a reevaluation of how time is perceived and valued in the context of business.

Takeaways:

• The unpredictable nature of people serves as a pivotal element in both business and personal dynamics, constantly offering surprises that can be both delightful and disappointing.
• Understanding the psychology behind deadlines can significantly alter our approach to productivity, revealing the diverse ways individuals respond to time constraints.
• The efficiency of one's work is often heightened under pressure, demonstrating that while some individuals may falter, others can excel when faced with imminent deadlines.
• Recognizing individual differences in deadline management is crucial; what works for one person may not suit another, necessitating flexibility in how we collaborate and communicate.
• Utilizing a proactive approach to deadlines, such as planning in advance, can alleviate the stress of last-minute tasks and enhance the overall quality of work produced.
• Ultimately, the nature of deadlines is inherently subjective, influenced by personal habits and capacities, which underscores the importance of adaptability in professional environments.

Learn More about Ben: IamBenBaker.com

Chat with Syya: BrilliantBeamMedia.com

Gnaw on This…Business Bytes is produced by Brilliant Beam Media.

If there's one thing we've learned about business and life is that people are the X factor.

They constantly surprise us, both in amazing ways and not so much.

We're Ben and Sia, and welcome to the Gnaw this Business Bites podcast.

This show is all about real life, things we all deal with every day, how they relate to business, and how to make some sense out of our daily chaos.

Welcome to the show.

Foreign.

Welcome back to another episode of Non this Business Bites.

I'm Ben and this is Sia.

And this week, we want to talk about the psychology of deadlines.

You know what, everybody?

Reach back, maybe not that far, maybe a long way back to high school, university, and those papers that didn't get started never till like, eight hours before those things were due.

And it's amazing at times how brilliant some of those things were, or at least the professors thought it was brilliant.

I've read some of those papers 10 years back, and I went, did I write that?

Did I understand that?

Okay, well, we'll just go with that.

It's amazing what pressure does to focus us.

Some people crack, some people shine.

And you need to desperately know yourself to sit there and say, okay, how do you run your life?

I'm one of these people that lived my life on a schedule.

I know what needs to be done.

It is never, ever done at the last moment.

It is usually done a day or two early.

You know, it gives me time to edit it, it gives me time to reflect on it, gives me time to change it and be able to, you know, be able to put the best product forward.

For me, that's how I work.

I know what the date is, but I put that date two days earlier.

And that way it enables me to have that extra time to go back and look at it, just to be on the safe side.

Some people live their lives up to the 11th hour, and I'm not saying who, I'm not saying why, but there are people in my life that live their Life at the 11th hour and, you know, nothing's a priority and becomes.

Until it becomes a priority.

And you know what?

That's a different way of looking at things.

I can't do it.

It drives me absolutely insane.

But then again, I'm one of these people that If I'm not 15 minutes early for something, I'm late.

So let's gnaw in this.

Let's chew on this one and see how do we come up with the realization of the psychology of deadlines and why different people look at deadlines completely differently.

So this is why you and I are friends.

And I think this is the first time in a long time where I think you and I are not thinking alike.

Right.

Like, I am.

I. I try really hard to plan.

Trust me.

I try so hard to plan.

I try.

Everyone say it with me.

Try so hard to plan, and yet something slips by.

I edit.

Right?

I create content all day long.

There is a process to this.

Mm.

And I remember, like, always almost in tears.

I don't cry.

So I'll say it's the equivalent of me crying, but I was almost like frustrated tears.

I'm like, kind of yelling, yelling at my boyfriend, and I'm like, why the heck?

How the.

I just wasted an hour because I missed step four.

Like, and I have to start over.

Or.

Or me retroactively because I skipped four.

Like, it's causing me pain because I skipped it.

It's almost like scrap it and start over again type of thing.

And, you know, of course, my boyfriend's very similar to you.

Mr. Logic.

Mr. Write it all out.

Mr. Why don't you build a checklist?

Well, the problem is, people.

I look at that checklist and it just.

Have you ever heard of the term, like, mind blindness?

You look at it enough and you literally miss a step because it.

You literally don't see it because you look at that all the time.

Like, on my backdrop desktop, I have a thing that says daily checklist.

And it's just my clients.

It doesn't have any action items.

It's just, hey, you have people paying you.

Do you remember this name?

Oh, yeah.

You haven't touched it in a while.

You might want to touch it today kind of vibe.

Right, Right.

Yes.

If I don't put deadlines on for things for me, I try to do two weeks in advance of stuff.

So that helps me with my brain realize if I'm.

If I screw up for an entire week, I'm not behind.

You know what I mean?

Right?

I know you make fun of me.

Like today, for example, like, you called me and you're like, hey, we're doing this right?

And I'm like, who.

Who are you?

Oh, today, like, and then you being the helpful person that you are, Mr. You know, see, I set alarms all the time.

I set a lot of alarms, sir.

I become ear numb to alarms.

I used to do that too.

And again.

And then.

And then I was like snork with.

Well, not snore Queen.

What's that called?

Snooze?

Ignore.

I just call it ignore Queen.

Ignore Queen.

And it becomes too much.

And that's when, again, what works for you may not work for others, I think.

But, but, but, but it doesn't matter what kind of brain you are.

To know that there is a deadline is to know everyone's marching on the same drum too.

So you can't give a personality like me.

Get it done whenever you want to get it done.

It'll never get done right.

You know, and people like you are gonna.

Are the kind that's like, what is my function?

Cannot function what is my.

What is my.

So I.

Because you know why?

So I can prioritize exactly what I need to do.

So, yeah, I'm catching what you're pitching.

I'm catching.

I mean, I, you know, I, I love, I love our Saturday and Sunday, you know, loving text that I said you.

I said see ya.

This is your loving Sunday morning wake up call reminder.

Oh, yeah, we gotta get the done.

We gotta get the pre interview, pre week's show.

You know what?

Back off, peoples.

All of you.

You're.

But you know what?

But it works for us.

You, I get my.

I get my weekly snicker and, and you get the.

Oh, you know, we got to get this done and it works for both of us.

So that's okay.

Yeah.

Because the problem is I can't do my part until you've done your part.

So I know.

Knowing that I'm your weakest link, I think it's h. Like I'm.

I'm your.

I'm your down the.

What's that called?

The.

The factories.

Like you're just standing there playing tiddlywinks until you're like, my.

My stuff is done.

I think conveyor belt.

Yeah, I've done the conveyor belt.

Wait.

Waiting for my piece to show up.

Exactly.

Oh, my gosh.

We all, we all have our idiosyncrasies.

God knows I have enough of them.

God knows enough.

And, and for me, you know, I just don't ever want to have anybody waiting on the conveyor belt for me.

Fine.

Whatever, dude.

It's just.

No, no, that's just me.

That's my idiosyncrasy.

That's.

That's.

That's my anal retentiveness.

You know?

You know, I have.

We have a shirt that says.

It says.

It says I don't have ocd.

I have cdo because the letters are, Are arranged in perfect order, you know, so it's.

I understand.

I have OCD when it comes to certain things.

There's certain things.

It Needs to be right.

It needs to be done, you know, on time.

It needs to be done early.

And this is okay because that's how I function.

But for me to sit there and put my demands and my schedule and how I do business and how I deal with deadlines on everybody else is unrealistic.

You know, my attitude is this needs to happen by Tuesday at 3 o' clock, because Tuesday at 5 o' clock I'm presenting it.

And I need, I need two hours to be able to put this thing together before the meeting.

I prefer it the night before, but I need to have it.

You know, that's you being really kind, by the way.

Perfect.

Yeah, it needs to be perfect.

It needs the two hours before.

So I have time.

And I will, I will have booked those two hours before the meeting to reread the note.

I'll be rereading the notes anyway and doing all that kind of stuff, you know.

But where I go crazy is when somebody promises me something and then they let me down.

Yeah, they don't, they don't fulfill their part of the bargain.

Right.

You know, they don't fulfill.

And, and unfortunately, you know, with vendors it's, and I've tell vendors this one and done.

I say you either lie to me or you let down my clients.

And it doesn't matter if it's my internal client or my external client, you're done, we're done.

I will go find somebody else who can.

And this is, this is the conversation that I have with vendors, you know, with internal clients, it's, obviously, it's a different conversation.

But with, with vendors, you know, I need, if there's going to be a problem, I need to know early and often what the problem is, what you're doing about it, what the resolution is and how we're gonna, and how we, how we're gonna position this to the customer.

And you know, if you can be open and honest and let me know that a week ahead of time.

This has been, you know, we can't get the raw materials for this.

Our, our vendors out of stock.

We can't, we've checked three other sources.

We can't do that.

Okay, now I can go back to the client and say, look, we've run into a sourcing issue where we got, we can, we can, we can use this product instead of this product.

We can get that product.

Will that work for you?

Here's what the ramifications are.

This is what, it's either going to cost a little bit more money or it's not as good quality or this is where the problem is and give them a couple so the customer can make a decision.

But if you leave it, the last minute says, oh, well, I couldn't get.

I couldn't get the raw material, so I didn't go bother, you're done.

You're absolutely.

In my life, in my world, you're done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, you remind me of another conversation previous, I think, where we're talking about like, you know, setting the boundaries of.

Of.

Of in communication, right?

And having the ability to do that.

It's funny with deadlines, especially if you're working, you're talking with whoever, either client, internal or external client, I'd mentioned at the very end how, you know, how is it that we're still friends?

And what was it about a communication?

You just mentioned deadline.

And I remember there was one project that m. That kind person gave us their deadline, which is fine because that's.

That's our deadline, not my deadline.

Right?

But that punk knew darned well because I told him in advance, like, hey, there is some delays, you know, just.

But you need to get the order in so I can put you in priority and whatnot, right?

And he told me, well, I have a deadline.

I need delivery deliverable by X this date.

Well, he did his part.

He got the PO in, which is great.

Come to find out he had heard that there was going to be a shortage of certain components and whatnot, and smart on him, kept pushing, say, the debt drop dead date.

I have to have delivered by this date.

That thing sat there for two months because he wanted to guarantee himself that he had it.

So yes, I agree with deadline, but at some point too, it's like, come on.

I mean, yeah, but it's okay.

We've all.

We've all fudged deadlines for, you know, told people that we need.

We said we need to have a Tuesday when we really need to have it Friday.

Right?

But my attitude is, is that, you know what?

I'd rather do that than have you delivered it on Friday afternoon when I'm trying to get into a FedEx package by 8 o', clock.

You know, by 5 o'.

Clock.

And heaven knows that happens.

Yeah, no.

100.

100.

But it is funny though how deadlines is that term is so arbitrary really.

It depends on it can be for real.

And there are some people who really cut it close, right?

And there are others that are like, and.

And you.

And.

And is that not such a you and me?

Like, I'm the kind that's like, just get it to me right before, dude, if we got it, we got it.

You're like, so for peace of mind for everyone, we're going to have it a week prior to we have the opportunity to asset tag everything in advance.

And like, yeah, I get it.

I catch you with your pitching.

It is cracking me up, though.

Like, it's an arbitrary concept, but it's.

It's also sometimes not for you to control.

If you're in a service side of the things, it's sometimes it's nothing that you can control unless it's something you can control.

Right.

So, yeah, I mean, I've also had customers that say this, I need to buy a certain date.

I said, okay, this is going, yes.

And I said, yeah, we can do it by that date, but we're going to have to airship it.

We're gonna have to airship 10,000 pieces from China to the east coast on, on an overnight in order to make that, to make that deadline.

Are you willing to do that?

Says, well, tell you what, how many days is it going to take?

Well, it's going to be about 24 days on, on water.

And then rail across the country says, all right, well, why don't you just get us 2,000 for that day to have the rest of it put on the water as soon as you can.

You know, when all of a sudden they realize that it's going to be an extra $60,000.

It's amazing how priorities change.

It's amazing.

Exactly.

Amazing.

All of a sudden people go, that's going to cost an extra $60,000.

Maybe we don't need all of it in New York City on the same day.

Limited, you know, limited release or whatever.

But, you know, if.

If the rest of the stuff gets there in 30 days later, we're okay.

We're okay with that.

It's.

It's amazing how priorities shift and change and how, you know, the psychology behind it shifts and changes when all of a sudden you let people know it's going to be another sixty, eighty, hundred thousand dollars, you know, to be able to meet their deadline.

That's hilarious because.

Because now you're putting money where their mouth is.

If it was a serious deadline, oh, they would pay it.

If it was that important, they would pay it.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, well, I mean, I've Told you this story about when I worked at Kinko's before.

It says we had a client that, that needed to have something.

They had people heading on a plane on Sunday night for an 8 o' clock Monday morning meeting.

And they needed 250 copies of this 250 or 300 page color brochure or catalog, you know, printed, collated, bound tabs, everything for them to pick up so they can go right to the airport.

We closed down two or three stores to make this thing happen.

I mean we're talking 30 years ago.

So printing full color was extremely slow at the time.

You know, the rip, you know, just didn't have the RIP technology and then putting it all together.

So therefore, yeah, we, we had to close down three stories and they said, we don't care what it costs because it's a half billion dollar.

You know, it's a half billion dollar proposal.

If we don't have this information in our hands, we're out on a half billion dollar.

You know, we, you know, we, we just don't even get a sniff at it.

So yeah, we worked our humps 24 hours a day for three days running to get this thing out the door and we got it through.

And all I got when they signed the, they signed the visa was, thank you very much, we really appreciate it.

There's no, there was no pushback on price whatsoever.

Perfect.

That's.

Yeah, it matters.

Yeah.

No, I, you know, I know we could keep talking about this, but I, I do think deadlines, again, I'm going to argue they are arbitrary.

It can be for whatever need.

Arbitrary in the context of when they really, really want it, they will pay for it and it will get done.

I think so many great memories of deadlines.

I mean we live by deadlines every day.

We do.

Some find it anxiety inducing.

Others like me, I kind of get a, I'm not gonna lie, I get a bit of a rush, a high.

Um, partially because I didn't plan it.

I'm like, oh crap, right?

But yeah, no, it really, again, it goes back to a conversation I think we had way back when or we haven't had it.

Which I would love is really personality types.

Really.

Absolutely.

Some can excel in other areas.

Maybe when you're leveling out your team or you're working with your team to know this, this particular section of the group performs well under stress and this one does not.

And just like know how to work accordingly with them.

And as a manager or leader, to know that whatever deadline you set just know, one portion of the group might need more nudging than others.

That's all.

That's almost.

Speaking of deadlines, we've reached ours, so let's.

Let's land this plane.

I've been.

I see ya.

And we'll see you soon.

Hey.

Hey.

Hey.

Thanks for listening to another episode of not on this Business Fights.

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