How to Beat Procrastination: Get Others to Set Your Deadlines

Note: This article is based on the blogger Tyler Tervooren, who discusses the benefit of having deadlines set by others in order to solve the problem of procrastination.

For me, practically every research paper I did at university was preceded by a  night of research, writing, and anxiety, resulting in subpar work produced in a rush but decent enough to get a pass mark.

Since this was the norm throughout college, I became accustomed to putting off writing my papers even though I always had enough time to do so without feeling like I was up against the clock.

Yes, I've had other commitments for the past ten weeks. However, five days before the paper was due, I found myself under the gun, rushing through the required material, trying as much as possible to compose coherent sentences to make it seem like I spent the entire time preparing the research.

This, however, sometimes ends in smoke. Sometimes, the professor sets a writing schedule and clocks in on it until we turn it in. This way, I wasn't the one setting the deadline—the professor was, and they clearly defined the milestones.

I've been writing better research papers in this scenario than when I was on my schedule, and while I've never been a fan of rigorous rules, strict deadlines have helped me write better papers for editing and research.

Today, I find myself in the same scenario. You just have to give me enough time to do something, and I'll put it off till the very last minute, or set a strict deadline for me and fill me in on the consequences of not meeting the deadline, and I'll be banging on time but with better results.

I'm not the only one catching sight of this paradox. Top students struggle with deadlines, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, which also revealed surprising findings about what motivates us to work more quickly and to produce results of higher quality.

Setting smart deadlines: get others to do it

Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch, psychologists, collaborated on an experiment in  2002 to learn how to get MIT students to stop procrastinating. The research was truly impressive. They wanted to know if making students meet deadlines during their coursework would raise their level, and for that, they devised a plan to test this hypothesis and carried out two experiments.

In the first experiment, students from the same course were divided into three groups. The first group was tasked with finishing three research articles before the end of the semester, and they were free to run their time as they saw fit. The second group followed a set schedule, so each paper was due at a specific time during the semester. The third group received an identical task, but they were informed they could pick their deadlines.

The results were as follows: the first group allowed to run their time continued to put it off and ended up with the lowest grades because they rushed their paper in the final days before the deadline, whereas the third group allowed to set deadlines fared much better, earning higher grades and frequently submitting their papers on time. However, the second group outperformed the first two. In other words, the group with the best results had deadlines set for each of the three papers.

In the second experiment, the researchers tested the students once more to ensure that the findings from the first experiment were valid, so they assigned them to review papers by strangers. Of course, the researchers wrote these articles randomly, with deliberate spelling and grammar mistakes meant to be found and corrected by the students.

Students were placed into three groups, as in the first experiment. The first group was allowed to correct the papers at their own pace. The second group was asked to set and stick to their deadlines. The third group was given a fixed timetable for correcting all the papers.

However, in this experiment, students were paid for their performance and punished for non-compliance, yet the results were identical to the first. Students who worked under strict deadlines came out on top and earned the most money for their efforts. Students who set their deadlines were more likely to follow through with their plans and get the job done on time, while students who had no deadlines at all got the worst results and fell more behind than any other group.

The point is in bold, right? Regardless of your IQ, your performance and rate of accomplishment increase when deadlines are rigorously set by someone else.

Who should be setting deadlines for you?

Find the right person to set your deadlines

Get someone else to set your deadlines if you can't perform well when you set them yourself. If you're a student, your teacher will certainly do the job, but if you're an employee working under a strict and exact boss who sets deadlines, they'll do it with high precision.

But what if you're neither? Then who can do the job?

You have two options:

1. Have someone else set deadlines for you whenever you get the chance.
2. Couple your missed deadlines with serious consequences.

You can apply these options to several aspects of your life where you are prone to procrastination, such as:

1. Study

If you're taking a course and straining every nerve to set and stick to deadlines, talk to your professor and ask them to set up a timetable with milestones. Suppose they say "no," with the excuse of making you more responsible, show them the MIT research findings, and set the record straight that you're not after special treatment or a way to push you to study more. In that case, you just need to feel like missing the deadline will impact your performance.

2. Work

You can approach your boss the same way you approach your teacher. Explain in plain language that you want to get the best possible results for the company and that setting deadlines with consequences will be of great help. Inform your boss that you have studied the subject and deduced that this is the best action.

3. Freelance

Suppose you do not work for a company or a person. In that case, that is, if you practice a profession or do independent work, no one will certainly tell you what to do or when you should do it, so the solution seems very challenging, but one solution is to hire a work coach who can set deadlines for you. 

4. Workout

If you're trying to get in shape for a holiday or another event, such as a wedding or a party, but you're having trouble sticking to your workout routine, you can simply hire a personal trainer to tell you exactly what to do and when to do it. Get an experienced trainer who will pull the pin when you don't follow their directions for better results.

Find someone who can keep you accountable for your success and ask them to set a timetable for other personal goals.

Set an effective deadline right now

As previously said, the evidence confirms that you should seek the assistance of someone else to help you break the habit of procrastination. Answering the following questions will help you put everything we discussed into practice:

1. Do you procrastinate at work, in school, or on a personal project?
2. Who can you turn to to set deadlines? It could be a teacher, your boss, a friend, even a Coach, or someone else.
3. What serious consequences can you impose on yourself if you miss deadlines? What do you have to lose if you miss a deadline that would inspire you to work hard to avoid such a loss? Try to make the consequences such that you can hardly cheat.

In conclusion

You can overcome procrastination by having someone else set deadlines for you and enforcing a consequence for missing deadlines.