{
  "title": "Prioritisation: should intermediate deadlines be staggered?",
  "url": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/prioriser-faut-il-echelonner-les-echeances-intermediaires-en",
  "language": "en",
  "datePublished": "2026-04-18",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "SHR — Swiss Human Resources",
    "url": "https://www.shr.swiss",
    "address": "Esplanade de Pont-Rouge 9A, 1212 Lancy, Suisse"
  },
  "summary": "A final delivery date does not always provide enough structure for the work. Intermediate deadlines can help, but simply adding more of them is not a solution.",
  "section": "Research",
  "topic": "Time Management & Prioritisation",
  "place": {
    "name": "Zurich",
    "region": "Zurich",
    "country": "CH"
  },
  "keyPoints": [
    {
      "heading": "What the literature establishes",
      "point": "Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch (2002, Psychological Science) studied deadlines as a means of limiting procrastination in academic assignments and a proofreading task."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Why the final deadline sometimes motivates too late",
      "point": "Piers Steel (2007, Psychological Bulletin), in a meta-analytic and theoretical review, identifies the delay before a task's consequences among the factors associated with procrastination."
    },
    {
      "heading": "The premature conclusion",
      "point": "One might conclude that every project should be divided into a tightly packed series of mandatory deadlines."
    },
    {
      "heading": "What the evidence cannot prescribe",
      "point": "The deadline experiments concern bounded tasks that differ from some collaborative projects involving successive approvals."
    },
    {
      "heading": "A practical check in Zurich",
      "point": "As part of SHR's “[Time Management & Prioritisation](/formation/gestion-du-temps/zurich)” programme, a Zurich team in financial services, insurance, tech or a European headquarters could test intermediate deadlines on a category of recurring assignments."
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "authors": "Wertenbroch",
      "year": "2002",
      "source": "Psychological Science"
    },
    {
      "authors": "Steel",
      "year": "2007",
      "source": "Psychological Bulletin"
    }
  ],
  "wordCount": 391,
  "image": "https://www.shr.swiss/img/blog-editorial-2026-04-18-en.jpg?v=4",
  "translations": {
    "fr": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/prioriser-faut-il-echelonner-les-echeances-intermediaires",
    "en": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/prioriser-faut-il-echelonner-les-echeances-intermediaires-en",
    "de": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/prioriser-faut-il-echelonner-les-echeances-intermediaires-de",
    "it": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/prioriser-faut-il-echelonner-les-echeances-intermediaires-it"
  },
  "relatedPages": {
    "programme": "https://www.shr.swiss/formation/gestion-du-temps/zurich",
    "city": "https://www.shr.swiss/formations-ville/zurich",
    "blog": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog"
  },
  "citationPolicy": "Citation autorisée avec mention « SHR — Swiss Human Resources » et lien vers l'article."
}