Set An Absurd Deadline
“I set obscene deadlines on absurd projects. And then when I hit them — I always seem to hit them — it just fuels the fire for more ostentatious deadlines in the future!”
Whitney Burks is one of the most creative people I know. As a former varsity softball player at Stanford, she quickly distinguished herself as a standout student despite her crazy calendar. Now, she’s a valued member of our illustrious coaching team in the d.school’s Executive Education division. In addition to coaching in our programs, and working at a nano-bio-tech startup (something about straws the size of 1/1000th of a human hair?), she also designs wildly creative gifts for friends and family in AutoCAD. Her secret: “obscene, ostentatious deadlines.”
It’s a legitimate creative hack!
Adam Grant recently sat down with Lin-Manuel Miranda and his father, Luis, to discuss the how their collaboration works (talk about complimentary collaborators!). It was a fascinating examination of creative productivity (full transcript here). One point they discussed in detail is the value of a deadline to drive creative work.
“Grant: ‘There have to be tasks now that are not intrinsically interesting or meaningful to you that are still important for you to be able to produce your brilliant work. How do you motivate yourself now, and what would you tell your teenage self?’
“Miranda: ‘…I also learned very early on that I thrive on deadlines and that can be a positive thing… Tommy Kale who is (perhaps) the most important collaborator in my life, realized very early that I thrived on deadlines. So he just said let's meet every Friday… he just said, bring in something every Friday, we'll meet in the basement of the drama bookshop.
And on days when I brought in stuff, we had stuff to talk about.’”
A creative collaborator told me that a distinguished professor once told him that “Deadlines are grace.” I couldn’t agree more. I have found for myself that a deadline (in my case, daily) is a powerful forcing function to synthesize disparate inputs. And I’m not the only one:
“POW! That was such a great process!” “Your advice was incredible! I’m going to do that more often…”
These are actual quotes from actual collaborators, appreciating the detailed process I have suggested for writing a guest blog post when they ask, “How should I undertake the invitation?” The advice I give my illustrious blog guests is always essentially the same: marinate on the prompt for a couple of days; notice quotes, stories, experiences, or data that might lend your perspective credibility; allow yourself no more time than 30 minutes to write your first draft; send it to me and I’ll help you edit; please do this in the next 3 days.
That last part probably catches them off guard. I thought I’d give myself a little more time…
It’s unexpected, but giving folks much less time than they think a task “should” take dramatically reduces pressure and helps deactivate the self-censor that unwittingly keeps them from moving forward.
Related: Set An Output Commitment
Related: Censoring Self-Censorship
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The quality of our thinking is deeply influenced by the diversity of the inputs we collect. Implementing practices like Brian Grazer’s “Curiosity Conversations” ensures innovators are well-equipped with a variety of high-quality raw material for problem-solving.