The Grasshopper had an interesting observation this morning. He said, “The only natural deadline is death.”

I got curious about the meaning and this is what I arrived at: All other deadlines are manmade.

Deadlines are created by man, so therefore, by their nature, they are arbitrary.

Now if you took this too literally, you would miss a lot of buses, trains and planes, not to mention the latest episode of “The Biggest Loser.”

The setting of personal deadlines is an everyday occurrence. The question is: “Do we really need so many?”

Deadlines, by their nature, can be focusing agents. Think of April 15^th as an example.

When we self-impose so many personal deadlines, do we scatter our focus? I believe so.

When we scatter our focus, we get watered down results and take out an insurance policy for mediocrity.

Too many deadlines make us like the stereotypical reporter in a movie. We live on coffee and doughnuts, are constantly stressed, and all our deadlines take on the weight of The Sword of Damocles.

We fail to prioritize our deadlines and they sit there as one big threat to our personal time and well being.

As a society, we are overscheduled and over-deadlined.

What’s missing is scheduling time for us.

Deadlines will not go away, but more of them can be met if we would just take a moment to breathe. And by breathe, I mean recharge.

Recharging is the missing piece in successfully meeting more deadlines.

Recharging is making time to regroup your resources. If you attack your deadlines with scattered resources you will deliver scattered results.

All deadlines are not equal. There is a hierarchy. Isolate the one that’s most important and work your plan. Then take a break before going on to the next.

“I don’t have time for a break” may be your response. What you are missing from that angle of view is that anything you do from that mindset will be subpar and taxing to your well being. You insure that the next thing on your list won’t get the proper attention.

If you don’t slow yourself down, nature will. It will send you a situation that mandates that you slow down – a malady, a disease, a condition, that will force you to focus all your attention on recovering. Your only deadline at that point will be staying alive.

Recharging has two benefits:

1. You’ll successfully meet more deadlines.
2. You’ll live longer.

This is a promise: If you put recharging on your list of deadlines, you’ll uncover the scoop of the century.

All the best,

John

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