How to stop suffering from the approaching deadline

according to the survey2017 Stressful Jobs Reader Survey CareerCast resource, last dates are one of the most common causes of stress in the workplace.

But if you stop to take a negative deadlines, it will save up a lot of nerves. Here are some effective tricks to help you get the job done faster.

1. Install several terms instead of one

Economists Dan Ariely and Klaus Vertenbroh conducted a studyProcrastination, Deadlines and Performance: Self-Control by PrecommitmentTrying to figure out how people deal with the planning of their tasks and avoid procrastination. The subjects were divided into three groups and gave them all the work is divided into three tasks, and set different terms:

1. The first group was instructed to perform one task per week and once every 7 days to report on progress.
2. The second group was given a period of three weeks for all jobs.
3. The third group has set deadlines on your own.

As a result of the first group, which was forced to report on the implementation of tasks on a weekly basis, a much better cope with the work - people make fewer mistakes and be careful to respect the deadlines.

Research shows that the best way to establish the most realistic and least bend the time - breaking large projects into smaller tasks, assigning each of them a deadline.

For example, the task "to submit the project to the customer until August 15," you can pretty stretch - she looks too daunting. And here are the options "to make a sketch by July 1," "do the layout by 15 July", "to create a prototype for the July 31" look a much more simple and accessible - you have a specific time and specific actions to be take.

In addition, a uniform distribution of deadlines allows you to feel the progress, which further motivates you. An example from the animal world: the psychologist Clark Hull studied the rats are mazes in search of food. He found that animals which have already gained one prize, has made great efforts, while continuing to search. Hull called this behavior hypothesisThe goal-gradient hypothesis and maze learning gradient goal.

If you visually see the progress in the work, you get an extra incentive not to relax efforts. Simply put, when as we move through the list of cases expunged you more and more points, it motivates you to finish the job quickly. There is a huge amount of Task ManagerTo track progress - choose any.

2. Find your perfect level of stress

We tend to think that stress - it is something clearly bad, and ideally they should be avoided. But it is not so. In small quantities, stress can motivate us.

Law Yerkes - DodsonNot Stressed Enough?Formulated by psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson as early as 1908, says that the more a person is mentally tense, the more effectively it works. But this state after reaching a certain threshold performance is declining and the man lowers his hands.

When we experience stress, the body increases the level of adrenalineUnderstanding the stress responseWhich makes us more attentive, it sharpens the senses and gives us strength. Stress - a kind of doping, which gives us a temporary bonus, both physical and mental energy.

How to choose the ideal level of stress?

• Complex projects require a low level of tension. They are themselves a cause for excitement, do not cheat yourself beyond that.
• The tasks of moderate complexity, require a moderate level of stress.
• The high level is great for simple tasks, to motivate you to deal quickly with them.

Install for simple cases a short time, do not delay them for later. Fast approaching deadline will increase your stress levels - it will spur you.

3. Trim the timing advance

If you are struggling to catch up to the deadline, but have problems with motivation - you can help setting shorter deadlines.

In a studyThe Mere Deadline Effect: Why More Time Might Sabotage Goal PursuitPublished in the Journal of Consumer Research in 2018, the experimenters asked a few people to fill in a survey. One group was given this week, the second - two weeks.

Guess which group completed the survey in time? One in which there was less time.

In another experiment,The Mere Urgency Effect the same researchers gave a group of students a choice: either perform a more urgent task and get three chocolate or do not as the burning job and get a reward of five chocolates. And most of the students prefer the first option, although there was less reward.

The researchers concluded that there is a so-called effect of urgency: we are interested to perform tasks in the near future, even if we get less benefit from it. Urgent matters as experimenters write, have great appeal.

To take up a job with distant deadlines is not easy, because we feel that such tasks are more complex - in fact they require more time. The works that we consider time-consuming, we tend to saveBut setting shorter deadlines motivated to do the job as quickly as possible.

4. Share your goals and progress with colleagues

In 2015, the American Association for the Development of talent (ATD) conducted a studyAn Accountability Partner Makes You Vastly More Likely to Succeed and I found that if you are reporting on the progress in the work of another person (boss, colleague or a friend), your chances to finish the job are increased by 65%. They increased by 95%, if you have regular reports on its achievements to the team.

These findings are consistent with research by Dan Ariely and Klaus Vertenbroha, which we mentioned earlier. They found that those employees who are appointed for other people perform tasks faster and more efficiently than those who planned his own time.

Let you set time limits for somebody else, and you follow them and report on progress. If you have no head, find a partner who will control you.

5. Turn deadlines in the game

In his speech to TED psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called the flow of secret happiness. Flow - is a state when you are so focused and passionate about your work, do not even notice how time flies.

When we are in a state of flux (which is also called the period of maximum cognitive efficiency), we even brain activity changes. In the prefrontal cortex increasesBrain activity during the flow experience: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study oxygenated hemoglobin concentration, the efficiency of the brain increases. When we are bored, this is not happening, and we concentrate on the more difficult task.

Therefore it is necessary to apply the principle of gamification, especially for those cases that you find uninteresting. A little boring tasks to comply with the deadline. Turning his work into the game, you will make it more fun and increase the motivation to finish everything in time.

There are many ways geymifitsirovat tedious task. For example, you can compete with their colleaguesTo awaken the spirit of excitement. Or install any specialized application (eg, Habitica), which will give you for every thing a finished achivki.

Try all of these methods, and the approach of the deadline will no longer cause you panic.