Why you should ask for deadlines and how to do it
A task with no deadline competes against everything else that does have one, and usually loses, sitting untouched for weeks. Ask the person who gave it to you for a real date, even a rough one: "when would be useful to have this by" works better than waiting for them to volunteer a deadline they may not have thought to give you.
A task with no deadline is invisible
A task that says "whenever you get a chance" sits at a permanent disadvantage against everything else on your plate that has an actual date attached. Urgency, for most ADHD brains, comes from nearness in time far more than from importance, so a genuinely important task with no deadline can lose, day after day, to a much smaller task that happens to be due Thursday. This is not a sign the undated task does not matter. It is a sign that the absence of a deadline made it structurally easy to postpone indefinitely.
Why people forget to give you one
Most people who hand you a task without a date are not being careless, they simply have not thought about your side of it. They know roughly when they would like it, sometime this month, before the next planning meeting, but they did not translate that into an actual date because it felt obvious to them or because they were focused on explaining the task itself rather than scheduling it. Asking for a date is not calling out their oversight. It is finishing a conversation they left incomplete.
What to actually say
A direct, low pressure question works better than hinting or guessing: "When would be useful to have this by?" or "Is there a date this needs to land by, so I can plan around it?" Both frame the question as being about your planning, not about pushing back on the request, which makes it easy for most people to answer without feeling interrogated. If they say "no rush," follow up once more: "Got it, would two weeks from now work as a target, just so it does not slip?" This turns a vague non-answer into something you can actually schedule. Tone matters less than directness here: most people respond better to a plain, specific question than to a hedge that tries too hard not to sound pushy.
Asking in writing versus asking out loud
Email or a written message gives the other person time to think about a real date rather than guessing one on the spot, which often produces a more accurate answer, but it also makes it easier for them to leave the question unanswered among everything else in their inbox. Asking out loud, in a meeting or a hallway conversation, tends to get a faster answer, even if that answer is rougher, since most people will give an approximate date rather than admit they have not thought about it yet. If a written request goes unanswered for a few days, a quick spoken follow up, such as asking directly whether they have had a chance to think about a date, often gets you an answer faster than a second email would.
A worked example: the project with "no rush"
Say a colleague asks you to review a document "whenever you get a chance." Left as is, this sits in your backlog indefinitely, since nothing about it ever becomes urgent on its own. Instead, you reply: "Happy to, is there a date you need feedback by so I can get it to you in time?" She responds that she is presenting it in two weeks and would love comments a few days before that. Now the task has a real deadline, a week from today, that you set yourself based on information she already had but had not translated into a date for you. The task moves from a permanent someday item to something with an actual place on your calendar.
When they genuinely do not have a date
Sometimes the honest answer is that there is no real deadline yet, the project itself is still undefined. In that case, set your own working date rather than leaving the task open ended, and mention it: "I will plan to have a first pass done by the 15th unless you hear otherwise from me." This gives you the same practical benefit, a task that will actually get attention, without requiring the other person to invent urgency they do not feel. If it turns out the task never gets a real deadline at all, it may belong in a backlog rather than active planning; keeping a backlog without drowning in it covers holding onto things like that without letting them clutter your daily view, and if the deadline itself, once you have one, still feels too far off to act on, making a far due date feel real picks up from there.
Common questions
Is it unprofessional to ask for a deadline?
No, it is a normal planning question that most colleagues and clients expect and appreciate, since it shows you intend to get the work done rather than let it drift. Framing it around your own scheduling, rather than questioning the request, keeps it easy to answer.
What if I ask and still get "no rush" as the answer?
Propose a specific date yourself and confirm it: "I will plan to have this done by the 20th unless that does not work for you." This gives the task a real deadline even when the other person is not going to supply one on their own.
Should every task have a deadline, even small personal ones?
Not every single one, but any task competing for your attention against dated tasks benefits from having a date, even a rough self imposed one. A task with genuinely no urgency and no risk of ever mattering can stay undated in a backlog instead.
This article shares practical organizing ideas. It is not medical advice. For diagnosis or treatment questions, talk with a qualified clinician.