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Welcome back to Beyond Deadlines newsletter—a free perk for people looking to improve in Planning and Scheduling. Each week, we provide tactics, prompts, jobs and food for thought. We want you to succeed today, tomorrow and throughout the rest of your career.
Roughly speaking, losing something makes you twice as miserable as gaining the same thing makes you happy.
The Game is Changing
The internet was supposed to make it easier to build and connect. Somewhere along the way, we lost the plot.
beehiiv is changing that once and for all.
On November 13, they’re unveiling what’s next at their first-ever Winter Release Event. For the people shaping the future of content, community, and media, this is an event you can’t miss.
The 5% Rule: Stop Reporting, Start Leading
Your schedule isn't your value. It's your leadership tool.
Most schedulers think their job is to build logic and report progress. That's the 5%. It keeps the lights on but it won't build your career.
The 95% is what you do with that information. How you influence outcomes, shape direction, and earn a seat at the table.
The 5% Work
Sequencing. Durations. Logic ties. Progress updates. Formatting reports.
It's technical excellence. And technical excellence is table stakes.
Anyone can produce a clean update. What separates leaders from technicians is how they use it to guide, prioritize, and persuade.
The 95% Work
The 95% isn't about answering project questions. It's about shaping how people make decisions.
Here's what that looks like:
You see the whole system, not just the schedule. You speak the language of risk, cost, and opportunity, not activities and float. You help the project manager think three steps ahead. You communicate with clarity, confidence, and consequence.
Executives don't promote people who update well. They promote people who make others better at deciding under pressure.
When you walk into a room and change how leadership thinks about what's possible, that's influence. When your analysis helps them choose between competing priorities with confidence, that's leadership.
This is also how you break into executive roles. You stop being the person who knows what happened and become the person who helps shape what happens next.
The Shift
Every hour formatting reports is one you could spend understanding what your leaders are trying to achieve.
Ask them what pressures they're under. What trade offs they're weighing. What keeps them up at night.
Then use your schedule to bring order to that chaos.
Show them the time, cost, and risk behind each path forward. Frame the conversation so the right choice becomes obvious.
When you do that consistently, something shifts. People stop asking for your data and start asking for your opinion.
That's when you've crossed the line from scheduler to leader.
Try This Week
At your next meeting, after you present your update, ask one question.
"What's the biggest decision you're facing this week?"
Listen. Then tell them you'll model it and bring options.
Run two or three scenarios. Keep it tight. Show the schedule impact of each choice in terms they care about: finish dates, resource peaks, risk windows.
Present it like you're briefing an executive, not explaining a technicality.
Build It Over Time
Track your influence, not just your updates.
After every meeting, ask yourself: Did I inform, or did I influence?
Keep a simple log. What decision was being made? How did your analysis shape it? What changed because you were in the room?
Over time, your insights get sharper. Your communication gets tighter. Your presence gets stronger.
You'll find yourself in more rooms where strategy is being set, not just recorded.
That's when you stop managing time and start leading outcomes. That's when the 5% work starts serving your 95% career.
Help Becoming a Leader
Act as a high-performance scheduling coach helping experienced schedulers break out of the trap of technical perfectionism. Design a mindset-shifting self-help exercise based on “The 5% Rule”: the belief that only a small portion of a scheduler’s real value lies in building activities and logic ties, while the vast majority comes from how they support leaders in making smart, timely decisions amidst uncertainty.
Use the Choosing by Advantages framework as the lens for transforming scheduling from a mechanical reporting role into a proactive, decision-enabling discipline. Reference moments where schedulers stepped into a leadership mindset and unlocked real project momentum.
Format the exercise as a guided reflection with prompts, practical actions, and mental shifts, and keep the tone supportive, challenging, and growth-oriented. Before you begin ask me 3 questions to help improve your answer.
Company - Walt Disney World
Location - Multiple United States Locations
Company - Arcadis
Location - Remote
Company - JLL
Location - Remote
We have no connection to these jobs or companies. Our goal is simply to help you land the job of your dreams.
This week’s episode we dive into How to Build a Portfolio Schedule. Watch or Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Youtube.
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