You have your tasks and they are only yours. Only you remember about them. If you forget them, something bad will happen for sure. If your client reminds you about the project, it is a failure. And it is even worse if they don’t remind you and do the task on their own. Anyway, Bad Consequences are sure to arrive. And all these things are very likely to happen in a company where the designers have to remember about their projects, and nobody else keeps track of them.
Nobody keeps track of your tasks and reminds you about them
Sometimes you manage to do everything on time, it is great. Sometimes you do not have enough time for anything, it is no surprise. We always have projects like we never had before, and it is really hard to work like this. When your work does not go as planned, the main thing is to stay calm and carry on in the right way.
Right way
You realize that cannot finish the task in time and you let the one who waits know about it beforehand Shit happens. Usually moving the deadline a bit is not a really big deal. But you never know. You cannot make this decision on your own. You have to discuss the project with the team and decide what to do. If it happens again and again, it hurts, but it is very important to let the clients know about the f*ckups and adjust the deadlines. You have to admit your failures.
Wrong way
You cannot finish the task in time and let the one who waits know about it at the last moment This is a seagull level. You admit your failure, but there is no time to fix it. Someone will be affected: the one who will leave their own project and come to help or the one who will not have the result they expect.
You cannot finish the task on time and let the one who waits know on the next day, in three days or never It is an earthworm level. Cut off your worse half and get back to normal life.
Any task must have a deadline. A task without a deadline is not a task at all. And it is best to meet deadlines. To do this, you need to remember that something will not go as planned for sure. So you need to have time for discussing the project with the team. The first rule of getting things done:
If it is Monday, and the deadline is Friday, you must discuss the design with the lead designer on Tuesday, not on Thursday
That’s it. Yes, it is that simple.
To have the task done, you need the client, the lead designer, developers, and other team members. All these guys have their own lives and cannot be available at any moment. You need to arrange meetings with them, it is a part of your job.
A couple of tips: how to speak about your projects and how to avoid failures.
Maxim Ilyahov: your task is your commitment and failing in the right way (both links are in Russian).