“Panic Early and avoid the rush!” offered GK, as we actively exchanged ideas in a conversation about leadership, project management and life in general. He should know, since he’s been practicing the art of business even a few years longer than me and works in a high tech, project-based environment. What insights are captured within this excitable and amusing phrase?

If you’re facing a deadline, when does “panic” typically set in? Or at least when do you feel the knot in your stomach that warns “all nighter ahead” in college or that it’s time to “burn the midnight oil” later in life? I’ll suggest an answer, based upon extensive practical experience; panic sets in as the clock strikes eleven and the test, project submission, or the deadline looms! And how much time do you have left to work on it at that point? It could be days, or merely hours. Yet when the project commenced, it felt like you had worlds of time. What just happened?

Sure, that project is Important, but there were so many other Urgent things to do early on, when you had all the time in the World to get it done. So just push it off until later, much later, when you have so little time left to produce the desired results. But what if you had decided to panic early, when that hardly seemed necessary?

​When you panic early:

• You can define the multitude of options and all the necessary tasks;
• As you study your list, you can discover what’s missing and decide how to prioritize;
• You can contemplate what might go wrong, while there is still time to fix it;
  • Then again, if you wait until later, much later, when something does go wrong, you can simply be surprised and blame your misfortune on circumstances and too little time!
• The complexity of the challenge can force you to ask more, to learn more, to explore more deeply;
• Your self-imposed anxiety can motivate you to accomplish meaningful work in less time;
• Others can step up to help you, long before you’re out of time;
• You can get anxiety out of the way and refocus your energy and effort to the work at hand;
• Your probability of success increases!

In fairness, we’re not talking about succumbing to absolute fear here, which will shut down the reasoning power of our higher brains. The idea is to find and unleash that bit of self-induced motivation to get out of your comfort zone and get going, while your options aren’t limited by the clock. Each day begins with two immediate choices. It’s easier to make the right choice when you “panic early and avoid the rush!”

Tempus Maximize!