Here’s one challenge to your (convincing!) post: One of the only ways I get anything done in life is by promising it to someone and then being held accountable. What I achieve depends on what I promise—there are no independently “realistic deadlines” for me. However, I usually don’t achieve it by the date I promise. If I promise it by February, I get it done by March. But it wouldn’t help if I promised it by March. In that case, I would just achieve it by April.
While I’m exaggerating a bit to make my point clear, the upshot is that even though I agree with your reasoning, I’m still not sure I should underpromise—because it would just mean I achieve less? Overpromising is one of my only ways of making me move forward.
I’m similar in some aspects: There are some things I find so boring or difficult to do that I need external accountability to do them.
In these cases, however, I wouldn’t use the stakeholder to hold me accountable, but rather a colleague, friend, or other mechanism.
In fact, there are some instances where you want to be ambitious and say you’ll do more than you think you do, e.g. when setting goals for yourself. However, I think that can backfire if you do it with a stakeholder.
Here’s one challenge to your (convincing!) post: One of the only ways I get anything done in life is by promising it to someone and then being held accountable. What I achieve depends on what I promise—there are no independently “realistic deadlines” for me. However, I usually don’t achieve it by the date I promise. If I promise it by February, I get it done by March. But it wouldn’t help if I promised it by March. In that case, I would just achieve it by April.
While I’m exaggerating a bit to make my point clear, the upshot is that even though I agree with your reasoning, I’m still not sure I should underpromise—because it would just mean I achieve less? Overpromising is one of my only ways of making me move forward.
I’m similar in some aspects: There are some things I find so boring or difficult to do that I need external accountability to do them.
In these cases, however, I wouldn’t use the stakeholder to hold me accountable, but rather a colleague, friend, or other mechanism.
In fact, there are some instances where you want to be ambitious and say you’ll do more than you think you do, e.g. when setting goals for yourself. However, I think that can backfire if you do it with a stakeholder.
Does that make sense?
Thanks, that is a word of wisdom. I’ll have to practice this!
I was going to make the same comment as Dominic. This is a great tip! Overpromise with friends, underpromise with stakeholders.