Deadlines: A love-hate story
Deadlines: Can't live with them, can't smash the clock with a ball-peen hammer.I have a complicated relationship with deadlines. I basically cannot work without them, but I hate them. They loom over me, taunting me with that thing I haven't done yet.Even so, if I don't have a deadline? That blog post, that room I have to clean, that whatever it is that I have to do is just gonna get pushed back and back and back and back and back.
“Deadlines just aren't real to me until I'm staring one in the face.”— So says Percy Jackson in Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief
At a job, it's a little different, because it comes with built-in deadlines as well as a paycheck attached, so there's a bit more motivation, I suppose. Also, when other people are relying on me, I'm a bit more motivated. Still, I need that deadline or else I'll just keep doing other things that do have deadlines.Spending more than 20 years in daily newsrooms, though, trained me to need a deadline to get working. I was on a new deadline daily - every single day, I was expected to produce something. If I didn't, I felt as if I hadn't gotten anything done. Of course, there were projects I worked on and took more than a day to produce, and I didn't necessarily write every single day.But I'd sneak in on weekends and work on those longer-term pieces, so come Monday, I'd be back on the daily grind. I say I snuck in because we weren't supposed to work more than 40 hours a week. I wasn't going in to get overtime pay, though. I was going in to do some work I didn't want to have to do during the week.Back to the deadlines.When I first left newspapers in 2008, I soon started working in social media strategy and management. The deadlines there were more than daily - they were constant. I was just working on things all day long and didn't really think about daily deadlines. The early years of social media management were much more free-flowing than they are now, as we were all just sort of figuring it out.That was fine by me. I work really well under pressure. I'm much calmer when it's all hands on deck and we need to get everything done now. After the Sept. 11 terror attacks, we all worked 18 hour days in the newsroom, and a minimum of six days a week (everyone made everyone take at least one day off so we didn't completely burn out). You've never seen a newsroom work as smoothly as it does in times of crisis. The entire focus is on the news - no time to worry about gossip or office politics or perceived slights.Deadlines have become difficult for me of late, because of this Year of Writing I've embarked upon. I know I have to write every day. But when should I post? When do I need to post by? Well, no time, really. So I technically could wait until just before midnight to post each day. But I like TV, in case you didn't notice, and I enjoy winding down at the end of the day with my sci-fi stories.So I should get these done in the morning. But other things come up and before I know it, it's noon. And then more things happen and then the boys get home from school and for an hour or two, chaos reigns. Finally, I settle down again and I'm facing the option of sitting in front of this computer screen or spending time with my husband and watching some TV or playing Assassin's Creed. Or maybe even - gasp! - reading a real, paper book.That's my deadline. I need to get this done before I even walk into the living room. That room is off-limits to me until I'm finished.So, pardon me. I'm a little hungry, and my husband's watching a good movie in the other room.Photo credit: Image by StockUnlimited