Do deadlines really matter?

I think about deadlines a lot. I have to, when my job is deadline-driven.

Submit the outline for this article by X date. Submit the first draft of that article by Y date. And submit the edits for yet another article by Z date. And so on.

I especially think about deadlines as they draw near. Cue the internal screaming, like aaahhhhIneedtosubmitthisin2daysandIstillneedtowrite4sectionsaaahhhh!

But sometimes, amid the turmoil, I stop abruptly and ask: why?

Why do I need to submit this by this date? What does it matter?

Deadlines can seem arbitrary. For example, does it really matter if I submit a draft on 1 September instead of 31 August as required? Would that one extra day really make a difference?

Maybe not—but maybe also yes, because I don’t have the full picture. The client might have already lined up people to pick up my work after I send it in. Or, they might have already locked in a date for using it. A day’s delay on my end could compound into a week’s delay for someone else downstream.

So, instead of questioning a deadline, once I agree on a reasonable one with a client, I treat it as Sacred with a capital S.

Deadlines keep projects moving. Setting a date gives both sides a shared expectation of when I need to deliver and when the client will receive it. Without this, the project might never get finished.

And I stick to deadlines for another reason: keeping my word shows I’m reliable. One of my clients put it this way in a testimonial (emphasis added):

“[Siew Ann] creates highly readable content, she does what she says she’ll do, and she does it by the agreed deadline. If you’ve worked with freelancers, you’ll know how rare that combination is. “

Personally, I’m surprised that doing what you say you’ll do by the deadline is considered rare. But then again, based on my own experience working with freelancers and contractors, I’m not that surprised.

So, even if I’m internally screaming because I’m behind schedule, I’ll still never intentionally miss a deadline. If I genuinely need more time, like because I’m waiting on client input, for example, I’ll ask for an extension.

And either way, I’ll hustle until the work is done and submitted. On time.

More freelancer news

Should freelance fitness instructors have to pay venue music licence fees?

Singapore’s sports statutory board, SportSG, recently emailed Learn-to-Play instructors to say they’ll need to pay for COMPASS and MRSS licences for the music they use in fitness classes. Alternatively, they can use royalty-free music.

A forum letter writer expressed concern about this requirement. He suggests that SportSG should bear the licensing costs instead, for these reasons:

• The licences might cost $600+ per venue per year, and this isn’t a small sum for instructors.
• Switching to royalty-free music isn’t the most feasible if instructors need to redo their entire choreography, or if changing the music changes the programme entirely (e.g. imagine going for a K-pop dance class that doesn’t use K-pop music, lol).

​Read his full letter here. I think it raises an interesting point, since artists should also be fairly compensated for their music. The question is just who should do it.