In my time management workshops, I usually ask, “How do your interpret ‘ASAP’ when someone asks you to do something?” This has become an all too common “deadline” in today’s workplace.
The most frequent responses I typically get are:
- It means NOW. Stop what you’re doing and do this new task.
- It depends on who says it.
- It means “Whenever” I can get to it.
Of course, the differences in interpretation arise because two key words in the phrase “As Soon As Possible” seem to conflict: Soon and Possible. “Soon” implies that the deadline is “Now-ish”, whereas “Possible” implies that the deadline is “Whenever-ish”. As for the response that it depends on “who” says it, now you’ve entered into the realm of mind-reading.
For tasks you delegate or requests you make of others, you can avoid any misinterpretation by just not using ASAP – give people a deadline day and time.
When others ask you to do something ASAP, ask them when they really need it. If they ask you “Why? What do you have that’s more important?”, you can tell them what else is on your plate to be done in the same time frame as their request.
That’s the hard part for most people – telling the boss what else they have to do that is more important than this new ASAP request. They don’t have a “targeted” workload / task plan. They just have a long “to-do” list, which doesn’t tell them when things are due or when they need to be worked on. (Don’t expect others to know what items are on your plate and the priority of each. You are the keeper of your workload and priorities!)
In the absence of the workload plan, the most common response to the new ASAP request is “OK” or “Sure” or “Yes”. Too late, you realize you’ve said “yes” to too many people for the same time frame. Either you’ll get super stressed out trying to keep everyone happy or you’ll disappoint someone, which affects your reputation.
The other important aspect of ASAP’s is that they lead to “shifting priorities”. This multi-tasking really wastes your time. Based on personal experience, I’ve always said that it can take you 5 to 20 minutes of Mental Recovery Time to get your brain back to where it was (i.e. re-focus) after you complete the ASAP task.
In research conducted by David Meyer at the University of Michigan
My advice is to create a targeted workload (task) plan in Outlook by setting a Start Date for each task. You’ll respond better and with more confidence to each new task request you get. But your response also depends on knowing whether the deadline for the new task conflicts with your other commitments and priorities, and ASAP is not a deadline!
