I walked out of a meeting with my CEO. She had asked me for a resolution to a critical client issue. I immediately called a team meeting, explained the problem and assigned AIs. This is when the head of analytics asked me, “By when do you need this analysis”? Knowing how urgent the task was, I had an urge to respond, “ASAP”.

Has your team ever come to you asking how soon you needed something and you have been tempted to say ‘asap’?

If yes, then welcome to one of the biggest fallacies of time management. A word that is most often used to express urgency is rarely treated that way, especially when done over and over again, by team members leading to frustration from all parties involved.

Here are the reasons why this deadline never works:

1. Setting Teams Up for Failure: "ASAP" often signals that the deliverable was due yesterday, leaving your team feeling perpetually behind schedule and fostering a negative environment regardless of actual performance.
2. Competing Priorities: Your team is usually balancing multiple high-stakes tasks. The ambiguous urgency implied by "ASAP" suggests dropping everything immediately, which often isn't practical. For example, during another instance, my operations team had to abandon a nearly completed infrastructure project to address an "ASAP" request, resulting in missed deadlines and reduced morale.
3. Eliminating Negotiation: Beginning a conversation with "ASAP" limits the team's opportunity for a realistic dialogue about deadlines. I learned this when my product manager once told me candidly that setting realistic expectations upfront would have made the project smoother and less stressful for everyone involved.
4. Unnecessary Anxiety: Using "ASAP" repeatedly escalates anxiety, transforming a workplace into a constant high-pressure environment. During one-on-one reviews, multiple team members highlighted that unclear deadlines significantly increased their stress and reduced their job satisfaction.
5. Quality vs. Speed Trade-off: Tight deadlines without clear reasoning or room for adjustment often compromise quality. I’ve witnessed firsthand how tasks executed under extreme urgency frequently resulted in avoidable errors that required even more time to correct afterward.
6. Lack of Transparency and Trust: "ASAP" conveys an authoritative, hierarchical culture, eroding trust and openness essential for a high-performing team. After moving away from vague deadlines, I noticed our team engagement scores rose significantly as transparency improved.

Drop the word ‘asap’ asap from your vocabulary — do not use a self-destroying deadline to express urgency.

So next time when someone on your team asks, “By when do you need this”. Engage in a prioritization discussion, no matter how urgent the task deliverable is. Be empathetic of how many competing priorities they already have in their bucket and transparent in why you believe the task is urgent. At the end give them a chance to succeed by estimating the amount of time needed to accomplish the task. Use a phrase such as, “How about 03:00 PM tomorrow? Does that work if we had to drop the other project you are working on. I will speak to Amy about shifting the deadline on the other project.” This opens a channel of communication and gives the team an opportunity to succeed. Besides being realistic with the deadline builds confidence in the team. In the end you are only as successful as the team is.

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Read our other articles on Product Leadership, Product Growth, Pricing & Monetization strategy, and AI/ML here.

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