Prazos! Deadline!

IS IT SOUP YET? 
We feel that we excel at the big things, like coming up with great ideas and then executing them brilliantly. What we sometimes fail at is the little things, like meeting deadlines. Which is too bad, because if you allow this to happen, you undo all the good. We need to focus on deadlines from the start and do whatever is humanly possible to meet them. And if that fails, we need to alert everyone as far in advance as possible that a looming deadline is in danger of being missed. A client will understand if they're called a day or two before they're expecting work to say it's not brilliant enough for them to see. They won't understand if they're called five minutes before they're expecting work to cross their desk. Undoubtedly, they've alerted their bosses and coworkers to the existence of this deadline and they don't appreciate us making them look like chumps. 
During the Civil War, there was an infamous POW camp at Andersonville, Georgia. Due to a wartime shortage of building materials, the camp had no fence around it.So to keep the prisoners inside, the general in charge drew a line in the dirt around the camp. He told the prisoners that this was the "dead-line" and if anyone crossed it, they would be shot and killed on sight. Now that we know the serious background of the word "deadline" maybe we can treat our own deadlines more seriously.
(Crispin Porter + Bogusky - Employee Handbook)