What do you do if you're facing tight deadlines in a social impact profession?

Here are some tips to thrive, even with stress-inducing deadlines: 1. Environment - Pick an environment where you do your best work (i.e. home, coffee shop, conf. room.) 2. Take a Breath & Plan - A few minutes of breathing & planning can remove stress & boost productivity! 2. Hard Stuff First - Research shows that by doing the hardest part first creates the best result. 3. Notifications Off - Turn off all notifications (Slack, text, apps), so you don't get interrupted! 4. Food - Make sure you have food, or healthy snacks to fuel your brain! 5. Focus on your Mission - Social Impact work has a higher purpose, so stay focused on your mission as you crush your deadline!

Honestly, what do you do if you have tight deadlines in any profession? Prioritise. Make a schedule. See if you can get all the easy tasks out of the way first and then prioritise the rest in terms of importance. You can do a lot more than you think. Keep a cool head - one step at a time.

Prioritise in terms of tasks that have the most social impact and are time sensitive. Communication is key to see how you can pivot if needed to ensure these tasks are completed first. Map out in terms of urgent important , important not urgent, difficult and easy to ensure there is a balanced approach to move the project forward under the time constraints.

Use Eisenhower Matrix. Categorize tasks as Urgent/Important, Urgent/Not Important, Not Urgent/Important, and Not Urgent/Not Important. Focus on Urgent/Important first. Don't overload yourself. Estimate task times and adjust deadlines if needed. Communicate with stakeholders if priorities shift.

A lot of these articles are a bit silly... In any context there are lots of great strategies to manage tight deadlines, and the best options are generally preventative.

A useful way to delegate tasks is to look at them from a detached position and work out if they need SOMEONE to do them or if it HAS to be you - ie does it need knowledge or skills that only you possess? It's also important to look at what opportunities delegating brings to other people - you're asking for their time but you may also be offering them the chance to stretch or feel more trust/respect by alocating it to them. It can be a real team building exercise to become an effective delegater

To delegate wisely on social impact projects with tight deadlines, start by breaking tasks down and matching them to team members' skills. Communicate clear expectations, empower your team, and schedule regular check-ins. Offer support and encourage collaboration while staying flexible. Celebrate achievements and reflect on what worked and what didn't for future improvements. This approach ensures everyone knows their role, works efficiently, and contributes to meaningful change within the deadline.

It also helps by removing unnecessary meetings and keeping the critical ones short and punchy. Quick status updates and flagging where support is urgently needed.

Efficient and effective processes are fundamental to functioning social impact strategies. As you think about your roadmap for the year, take a close look at how you operate. What works? What doesn’t? Consider doing a retrospective of your last project or partnerships, what were the areas of opportunity? Identify how you can work better and smarter, this will naturally improve prioritization.

When facing tight deadlines in a social impact profession, I emphasize the iterative process and effective communication. This approach involves continuously refining strategies based on data-driven insights and keeping team members aligned through clear, concise updates. By focusing on these areas, we can adapt quickly to changes, ensure all stakeholders are informed, and make decisions that propel our mission forward efficiently. This helps maintain momentum and maximizes our impact, even under time constraints.

The way you work should also align to your values. Is urgency a value? Is burnout? Are fire drills or stress? If not, do not infused that into your working style, be open to new ways of working. Be open to conversations and pivots, if something isn’t working or you need to shift, be transparent, get people on board and make the moves. We all want to deliver and perform when we speak of social good, the most important part is the good - that includes factoring wellbeing into how you work.

Communicating clearly is non-negotiable, in any collaborative effort but more deeply in any work relationship. - Keep language and communication simple, clear, meaningful and most importantly authentic. - Be honest, bring who you are as a human into all your conversations and communication. - Respect where others might be at, what pressures they may be under and perhaps may not be visible to you. Social sector work is tough, with increasing need, tighter deadlines and decreasing resources. This is human-centred work, and needs respectful, clear and thoughtful communication, always.

Transparency is key! If a deadline is tight, consider having a conversation on the why? Why are we working on such a tight turnaround? Is the need mission critical? If not, can we be flexible and change it so we can produce our best work? If it isn’t moveable, create support systems to manage stress. This may include breaks, time for rest and connection, and even exercises with team members and partners to identify activities that energize the team.

Transparency is key! If a deadline is tight, consider having a conversation on the why? Why are we working on such a tight turnaround? Is the need mission critical? If not, can we be flexible and change it so we can produce our best work? If it isn’t moveable, create support systems to manage stress. This may include breaks, time for rest and connection, and even exercises with team members and partners to identify activities that energize the team.

Transparency is key! If a deadline is tight, consider having a conversation on the why? Why are we working on such a tight turnaround? Is the need mission critical? If not, can we be flexible and change it so we can produce our best work? If it isn’t moveable, create support systems to manage stress. This may include breaks, time for rest and connection, and even exercises with team members and partners to identify activities that energize the team.

N?o perca o foco no seu objetivo. Gerenciar bem o tempo é um desafio que permeia a vida de muitos profissionais, quanto mais trabalhamos, mais surgem entregas urgentes que se acumulam incansavelmente. No entanto, mantenha-se focado no seu objetivo de gerar impacto para que possa colher resultados transformadores.