Summary
- If the date is relative to another date, you observe normal past/future relations.
- If the date is relative to a speaker, closer to the speaker is "forward" and further away is "backward"
I've certainly encountered this and I've noticed it's to do with the relative positioning of the dates compared to the speaker, not other dates.
I think I'll find this easier with an example and an illustration:
Given a person on a date, say the 1st September, place all of the relevant dates on imaginary pieces of card in straight lines in front and behind them representing future and past.
|> --->
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | : :
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
AUG ^ SEPT
Speaker
If they are "facing" the future, the Sep 9 card is behind the Sep 8 card, you are moving further away from the speaker, you are moving back.
------------> <|
: | | | : | | | | | | | | | | | | |
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
AUG ^ SEPT
Speaker
Similarly, this time the speaker is "facing" the past, they talk about moving an event from Aug 23 to Aug 27*, they are moving it closer to themselves, ergo, forwards.
*It's a bit fruitless reorganising events in the past isn't it!
Preferring your middle, unambiguous example of 3 Jan 2013, it would be quite natural to drop the year.
| Date | Name |
| ----------- | ---- |
| 03Jan – 09Jan | John |
| 10Jan – 16Jan | Jill |
| 17Jan – 23Jan | Mark |
It's quite easy to add in a 2-digit year when the date range spans over the year end.
| 28Dec13 – 01Jan14 | NewGuy |
These formats will be understood on both sides of the pond.
At the cost of slightly more mental processing, you may also use two-letter month abbreviations, such as http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mois. (I would suggest the Code bilingue column, but there does not seem to be a two-letter consensus in English, possibly because of the confusion between March and May.)
Best Answer
I'd rewrite it as the following. I partly agree with @Josh, except I would change his version to "As the deadline is drawing near, I was wondering if you have any news for me" (as opposed to "deadline date", which in my opinion is a bit redundant).
Note that in the above sentence, it's your choice whether you use "quickly" or "rapidly", "date" or "deadline", or "news" or "updates". I just thought I'd give you some more options to work with.