Dealing with unreasonable deadlines

You're not obligated to meet unreasonable deadlines just because the client asked

Hi Friend,

Don’t have time to read the article? Feel free to listen to me read it (almost) word for word here. You get the bonus of hearing my dog wander around in the background (that clacking sound is him leaving the room because he thinks I talk too much).

Me, after too many egg nogs at the Christmas party Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash

A Christmas (party) story

A few years ago, I was at a friend’s Christmas party. Fourteen of us were gathered in the kitchen enjoying our food, drinks, and incredibly witty banter, when my friend’s husband (we’ll call him Kevin) wandered in. He learned I was a writer and asked if I could take on a project writing a lobbying letter on behalf of his company.

The project sounded interesting and I had some availability on my calendar, so I said sure. Then I asked when he needed it done.

“Tomorrow morning would be great,” Kevin responded.

I smiled at him and did a calculation in my head, noting that a deadline of tomorrow morning would require me leaving the Christmas party and spending all night at the computer. I also recognized that he was unlikely to find any writer at this late hour in December who would write a letter that quickly and do a good job of it.

“That’s fantastic,” I said. “I have a $1,000 overnight fee on top of the regular fees for writing the letter.”

Kevin hestitated, did a quick calculation in his head, then laughed and said, “Some time next week is fine.”

The problem with unreasonable deadlines

Kevin’s not a bad guy, and he’s also not that different from thousands (millions?) of clients. They want the work done as quickly as possible and that becomes the starting point of any discussion on timelines.

As freelancers, we hear an impending deadline and immediately our brain swirls about how we can get the work done in time, regardless of whether or not it’s reasonable.

The problem is if we continually work on an ASAP basis, we will always be stressed out, running from short deadline to short deadline. We’ll give up our personal time to get the work done quickly and work long hours because the client desperately needs us to. We push everything else to the side (other work, family time, eating, showering) so we can get the project done.

We tell ourselves that if we do this work quickly they’ll come to us with more projects.

But because we’ve allowed it to happen once, the client will want every project done on a tight schedule. They’ll think it’s fine to come to us at the last minute because we’ll continue accommodating it. Because we want them to come back to us, we don’t say “no” to their deadline.

And it becomes a terrible cycle.

It’s a quick path to burnout.

It’s (almost) never an emergency

While clients might think their situation is “urgent,” it rarely is. With all respect to my fellow freelancers and clients, I’ve yet to be in a situation where someone would have died if I didn’t edit that document by tomorrow morning.

“If our blog post on dealing with overly helpful chatbots isn’t posted tomorrow by 9 am, the company will fall into bankruptcy and the western economy will collapse” is a situation very few freelancers actually face.

At worst, a deadline would have been delayed a bit. An inconvenience, sure. But not a true emergency.*

Fates almost never hang in the balance because we negotiated an extra day or two on a client’s deadline.

It’s very rare (not impossible, but rare) that a client’s deadline is actually hard and fast. Often, they’re just throwing out a date they’d like the work done. Maybe they want a few extra days to review the document themselves, or have their legal team approve it. But that doesn’t mean they need it done by that date. You usually have more wiggle room in negotiating deadlines than you think.

Because in almost every situation where I’ve had a client request the work done “ASAP,” there’s been a delay in completing the project. And that delay has always been at the client’s end of things.

It’s up to us to push back on unreasonable deadlines. Otherwise, we’re giving clients control of our time.

Clients push because they can

Some clients will push for fast deadlines because there’s no harm in doing so. The worst that happens if they ask for a quick deadline is you say “no.” They haven’t lost anything by trying.

But by letting it happen again and again, you’ll be giving up a lot.

In Keith’s case, there was no way for me to write the letter without important information from his lawyers and business partners. He assumed they felt the letter was as much of a priority as he did, but it took them days to respond to my requests for information. And then even longer to get back to me about the first draft of the letter.

In the end, the letter project (which I agreed to with longer deadlines) wound up taking two weeks. At my regular rate, two weeks was completely fine.

But if I’d left that party for my regular rate, I would have been resentful at having given up my personal time to work on that project. Especially when all delays were on their end, not mine.

(To be clear, if he’d approved the $1,000 overnight fee and wired me the money right away, I would have happily left the party and worked through the night. But that’s the point of that large rush fee, to either compensate me for that time or to get them to reconsider whether the project is so urgent they would be willing to pay the extra money.)

Don’t let them treat you like an employee

Some clients think they can have the same expectations of you that they have of an employee. Often they tell their employees to make something a priority and, as a supervisor, they have every reason to expect their wishes will be met.

But you’re not an employee. You’re a self-employeed contractor. You aren’t obligated to agree to unreasonable terms just because the client requests them.

The core problem is that we think as freelancers we should accommodate every request a client makes, just because they’ve made the request. But that’s not feasible and it’s not sustainable.

The client may be well-intentioned. They may or may not genuinely have an urgent content need. They may genuinely have an immediate deadline that isn’t flexible.

None of that obligates you to agree to their terms. And none of it entitles them to your regular services at your regular rates.

In this week’s Insider Tips, I’ll share some strategies for managing clients who come at you with imminent deadlines.

*Note that in this post, I’m not saying you shouldn’t meet deadlines you’ve set and agreed to. You should. But that’s a different situation from one in which the client is asking you to meet an unreasonable deadline.

Ever had a client give you an unreasonable deadline? Did you go along with it or did you push back? Share your stories in the comments.

A reminder that on November 2 at 12:00 pm Pacific (3:00 pm Eastern) I’ll be starting my first hour-long freelance chat. I’ll send the chat link just prior to that time and for that hour, I’ll be available to answer questions about freelancing or just chat about freelance careers. Stop by, introduce yourself, share your stories and ask your questions.

Here’s to your continued freelance success,

Heidi

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