Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how you can make your deadlines
Speaker 1: when you're depending on other people. Today's question comes from
Speaker 1: a listener who runs a film festival. She has deadlines
Speaker 1: for filmmakers, sponsors, rental providers, and so forth. In order
Speaker 1: to meet her deadlines, she reports, she spends a lot
Speaker 1: of time chasing people to meet theirs. I do make
Speaker 1: sure to give buffers for those deadlines, but sometimes people
Speaker 1: really miss the deadlines, despite phone calls, emails, and even
Speaker 1: Facebook messages during the week following their miss deadlines. She says,
Speaker 1: since I am coordinating so many people and from so
Speaker 1: many different walks of life, I know that I cannot
Speaker 1: expect them all to meet my deadlines. But that means
Speaker 1: I don't meet my lines. I have a hard time
Speaker 1: getting my work done as it requires their work to
Speaker 1: be done on time. What would you suggest for handling
Speaker 1: a team where their ability to get their work done
Speaker 1: directly affects mine. I know this is a common question,
Speaker 1: and not just for people running film festivals. Many of
Speaker 1: us run big projects that require lots of people to
Speaker 1: meet deadlines, and unfortunately, some people are much more reliable
Speaker 1: than others. Sometimes there are good reasons and sometimes there
Speaker 1: are not, But if you still want to be reliable,
Speaker 1: you have to figure out what to do about it.
Speaker 1: Our listener is doing the right thing by building in
Speaker 1: a buffer and communicating frequently before the deadline. It's good
Speaker 1: to reach out and see how things are going, and
Speaker 1: if people are encountering any obstacles you should know about
Speaker 1: when possible. It also recommends setting intermediate deadlines. People can
Speaker 1: turn in portions of the work just so you can
Speaker 1: check in on how the process is going. That said,
Speaker 1: some people are still going to miss their deadlines and
Speaker 1: the secondary real deadlines, so you need to do what
Speaker 1: newspapers do. People might not turn in things, or a
Speaker 1: story might not happen at the time it was supposed to,
Speaker 1: but the newspaper never prints a blank page. Instead, there
Speaker 1: are always some evergreen stories in the hopper that can
Speaker 1: be run if there's an opening. Likewise, our festival director
Speaker 1: can commission a bit more than she needs, or have
Speaker 1: some work from previous years that could be shown again.
Speaker 1: That way, she knows she's got enough material regardless, and
Speaker 1: then play tough. It is totally fair to put into
Speaker 1: people's contracts that if they don't turn their work in
Speaker 1: on time, they will not be part of the festival.
Speaker 1: People are free to show their own work whenever they'd like,
Speaker 1: but if you'd like to be part of something bigger
Speaker 1: than yourself, you have to play by group rules. A
Speaker 1: lot of people learn this the hard way. I helped
Speaker 1: with a choral composition contest for a few years, where
Speaker 1: we once got a commission very late. We had to
Speaker 1: spend a disproportionate amount of time that last week before
Speaker 1: the concert learning that piece, and so the clause went
Speaker 1: into the rules after that. Now, a film festival or
Speaker 1: a choir competition is a little different from most projects
Speaker 1: at work, but I think it still helps to think
Speaker 1: through backup options. You can usually check in to see
Speaker 1: if someone is falling behind, and if a team is
Speaker 1: falling behind, then you need to think about option B.
Speaker 1: Work hard to make option A work, but if it doesn't,
Speaker 1: then what have an answer and you'll be more relaxed
Speaker 1: in general. In the meantime, this is Laura, Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod.
Speaker 1: That's b E the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: At i heeart media dot com that Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I
Speaker 1: look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.