Get High at Work!

Nothing Hurts Like a Date

Written by

Kevin Sandlin

in

A wise friend and business partner many years ago said something to me when we were planning a project with our team. We had the what, the where, the why, and the how. We were all in agreement, and then he asked “when?” We all kinda mumbled and didn’t really give it any credence. Then he said with a little more emphasis, “When are we pulling the trigger? Nothing hurts like a date.”

Nothing hurts like a date. Now I say that all the time, because it’s just so true.

It’s easy to say you’re going to do this or that, but when you put a date on it, it becomes real. Put it on your calendar, and you’ll do it. You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their checkbook register (or nowadays their debit card charges) and their calendar. What do they do with their time and what do they do with their money?

Yesterday, in preparation for their final projects, I was providing feedback for several Digital Marketing students, and the most common two pieces of feedback were (1) that their strategy documents were too long and (2) that there were no dates & times to anything. When we create goals, those goals should be “S.M.A.R.T.”: strategic, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time sensitive. Scripture us to  “number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” When you put it on the calendar, it becomes a real thing.

One of the things that I notice about people on a daily basis is whether or not they have any sense of urgency about what they’re doing. Does “when” even matter to them? Yes, we live in a microwave super-size society, so we have come to expect things immediately, but when you’re building something, shouldn’t there be a sense of urgency in building it? That doesn’t mean to hurry and do a poor job. Rather, it means to count the days in which you have to do the thing you’re setting out to do.

How do you number the days? You put a date on the calendar, make it real, and get some sense or urgency behind your action. Then go do it. Nothing hurts like a date written down on a calendar shared with your team.

Comments

Leave a comment

More from Kevin

  • DGM4 Starts Tuesday at General Assembly

    If by now you have not made your way down to spend some time at General Assembly at Ponce City Market, you’re pretty much doing it wrong. GA is a great global brand in the digital training space, and they’ve built up a first class operation in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward. Tomorrow night at 6:30pm,…

  • Content + Images = Dope

    Good content is nothing without good images. It’s like PB&J. Or a bagel and schmear. Or popcorn and butter. My love affair with food aside, content and high-quality complementary photos and graphics are the perfect match. The Lowdown There’s a reason you can’t have content without an image. It’s the world we live in now:…

  • My process for creating blog content

    When you create blog content for a living, you can’t wake up each day and say, “ok, how we gonna do this today?” You have to have a process. Just like the process that we teach in Pitch Practice every week, it’s a construct that you start with and then adjust to your own style,…

  • 3 Reasons Why Every Digital Marketer Should Learn to Code

    This post originally appeared on the General Assembly blog in Digital Marketing, Work Life. The definition of “marketing” hasn’t changed in 100 years or more. However, the methods, tactics, and tools of marketing have changed rapidly in the last 10 years. Today, if you want to lay claim to the title “digital marketer,” you’d be…

  • 7 Upcoming Speaking Events at SuperNova South and General Assembly

    Summer is almost over, the kids’ school starts next week, and the fall schedule is about to kick into high gear. I’ll be teaching, leading, and otherwise getting up in front of people on several occasions for various reasons on a plethora of different topics in the coming weeks. Here’s the list of upcoming events.…

  • The 3 Ingredients for Outstanding SEO

    This post originally published on the General Assembly Digital Marketing Blog. Since Google took over ownership of the search functionality on the internet, the term “SEO” (search engine optimization) has been top of mind for any serious website owner. If you cannot be found easily when someone searches for your product or service on Google,…

  • Three great questions about social media strategies

    Last night I led a full house class called “Advanced Social Media Strategies” at General Assembly. This class is fun to teach, and we had a very large group with tons of great feedback, questions, and anecdotes to share. There were three questions in particular that we spent some extra time on. Should “going viral”…

  • Content Marketing Takes a Turn for the Worse

    When content marketing was first hailed as an initiative for brands to reach customers, marketers and consumers alike couldn’t get enough of it. But in the past couple of years, content marketing has turned down a dark path. We’re now producing gobs of articles and podcasts and social posts that mostly repeat each other. They…

  • Digital Marketing Terms & Metrics

      We kicked off a new class last night at General Assembly called “Digital Marketing Key Terms & Metrics.” We had a great turnout, and I tried a non-traditional delivery of this class. I didn’t use a slide deck. #FREEDOM! Instead, we started off with a little brain-freeing inspiration from this fantastic video. No, instead,…