Ever notice how much work you get done right before you go on vacation?

Your energy level surges, your focus sharpens, and your productivity soars. Things get done. Why? In large part because you’re motivated by a deadline. David Burnett, writing for The Guardian, notes: “In the historical sense, a deadline refers to the boundary around a prison which, if prisoners crossed it, they’d be shot by the guards. The term is now used mostly to refer to ‘the time by which something must be completed.’”

Deadlines are everywhere. College students wrestle with writing papers by a certain date. Your largest client expects the massive project you’ve been working on to be completed by the end of the week. You’re putting your home on the market in two weeks, and you want it to sparkle. The speed and intensity of effort grows as the deadline draws nearer. Seven years as a project manager for an IT company drove this home for me.

I wonder how much of our work would wander aimlessly without the power of deadlines? “I’ll get to that project one day” often means “I’ll never get to that project” or “I’ll get to that project only when my back is against the wall.” And I wonder how many projects never get done because no deadline is affixed.

Pastors and ministry leaders tend to be ambitious people, yet often they struggle with deadlines in their own life, and really struggle setting deadlines for those they lead. Perhaps they fear how people will respond to a timestamp. These thoughts can cross a pastor’s mind: “This is God’s work not a business, so I can’t hold my staff accountable.” Or…  “These team leads are unpaid, I can’t expect them to meet a deadline.” Or… “I can’t risk losing these folks, so I’ll shrug my shoulders and say ‘It’s no big deal’ when they don’t follow through on their commitments.” Not enough space in this blog to address those false assumptions, so let’s cut to the chase: A work commitment without a deadline is a fantasy.

Deadlines are powerful because they create:

An appropriate sense of urgency

An appropriate sense of accountability

An amazing amount of productivity

During my recent one-year stint as a part-time campus pastor, I collaboratively set goals with our team leads. I started the effort by asking them to marinate on two questions:

“What does health look like for your team in terms of scheduling/rotation?”

“How many people do you need to add to your team to achieve health by the end of 2017?”

I didn’t arbitrarily set goals for them. They possessed a keener sense of what was needed than I ever would. We set the goals together. . . and then even more importantly. . . we agreed to a deadline. And in our monthly one-on-one meetings, a portion of the agenda included checking in with them to measure their progress toward the goals they’d set. No yelling or screaming happened. No guilt trips laid on anyone. We simply talked about how they were doing with moving their team toward health schedule-wise. Amazingly, every lead was adding quality members to their team. They were benefitting from the power of deadlines.

Deadlines are tricky. They have to stretch people without suffocating them. They need to be realistic while at the same time requiring significant effort. When they’re missed, we have to deal with it honestly and pastorally at the same time. One of the better questions to ask when a due date isn’t met is: “What happened?” And then let them explain. Approaching these conversations with the intention of understanding and then helping, allows your team leads to feel the weight of the matter without crushing them.

We set deadlines knowing they serve as a significant growth factor for the people we’re privileged to lead. Human beings tend to have more capacity than they imagine, and one of our assignments as leaders is to draw out said capacity. Even Jesus Himself operated on deadlines. He knew once His ministry went public, He had a finite amount of time (three years) to mold a group of men who could carry on His mission once He was gone.

So, whether you lead a church, a ministry, or even a business, how is it with you and deadlines? Your team and deadlines? If due dates are part of your DNA individually and collectively, keep up the great work! And if you’re struggling either individually or collectively with deadlines, can I encourage you to take a step back and figure out why? What’s preventing you from putting a timestamp on your work and that of your team? Get to the root as quickly as possible. Allow deadlines, due dates, and timestamps to work in your favor.

If you need support as you dip your leadership toes into the due date waters, invite a mentor or a coach into your life for a season. Or find a friend who’s figured this out and ask them to help you figure it out too.

You’ll never regret tapping into the amazing power of deadlines.

I’m rooting and praying for you!