How to be more reliable in keeping promises?

The boss asks, 'Jerry, would you take care of this?' 'Sure. When do you need it?' you ask. 'Oh, Friday will do,' she says. 'Ok' you say, and she leaves with an expectation that you will deliver the result you promised by next Friday. If you're like most people, you are vaguely aware of your schedule for the next week. Because you don't recall any dramatic or all-time-consuming events, you assume you can do what you promised. And like most people, you intend to deliver.

But the week comes at you, requiring you to respond to unexpected events and complete routine activities, and the next thing you know, it's Wednesday. You haven't looked at what it's going to take to get that thing done for your boss. You know it's there and you're beginning to feel anxious about getting to it, as someone walks in your door and interrupts you. Finally, on Thursday night at 6 PM, you sit down to tackle the job. It's then you find that it's going to take four or five more hours of work than you thought ' you'll have to do some research, and you'll have to involve others before you can complete the job. All of a sudden, you realize that you will fail to meet yet another deadline and you begin to feel guilty.

Question: When you say yes, is your promise based in the reality of whether you actually, realistically, have time to produce the result you just promised? Have you thought through what it's going to take to fulfill the promise? How much time? What information? Who else needs to be involved, etc.?

Productivity Paradigm: When you promise to do something, your promise must be anchored in the reality of whether you actually have the time to produce what you have promised to produce. And knowing if you have the time can only be a function of having everything you're committed to producing scheduled in your calendar so you can account for the time it's going to take. Otherwise, you have set yourself up to continuously break your promises.

Remember: Many people fall into the pattern of feeling guilty after they have not kept a promise. That is just one of the ways your habit of being unconscious about your scheduled commitments and routines argues for its persistence. For most people, feeling guilty about not keeping a promise is actually more comfortable, because it's more familiar than establishing reliable scheduling habits, and using tools that keep you aware of what you've promised and how your time is used.

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