Jun 19 2009
On Deadlines
Best friend. Worst enemy. Implacable, mindless force. Motivation. Inevitability. Deadline.
People’s reaction to deadlines is often very mixed. For most people, the primary association is going to be with chores, homework, and other Things That Had To Get Done In A Specific Timeframe. Too them, the deadline is a looming monster, another irritating obstacle. And worse, it turns something that could on its own have been fun, like blogging or planning a game session, into just as much of a chore as getting those dishes washed. Moreover, it’s harsh, unyielding; the deadline doesn’t really care how rotten your life is, or how much else got tossed onto your plate, just that it’s there, and you’re somewhere else.
But that’s not to say a deadline isn’t without its advantages. A deadline is a way to ensure that the work gets done, rather than being put off for a later that always seems to be moving away. For people who work best under pressure, it provides the pressure; for people whose work is powered by their pride, it provides something to be proud of. The deadline might help people who tend to bribe themselves to get things done further push themselves, by letting the bribe only be applicable for a certain time. And when you’re dealing with people who want something now, the deadline’s the best way to reassure them—and to ensure for yourself—that there will be something done when they need it.
There’s nowhere I’ve discovered the value of deadlines more than in my own experiences with game design. If you don’t have a definite deadline, it’s always “next time, next time, next time”; I’ve seen people start a project and then delay, and have even done the same thing a few times. So when I first had to cover for our founder, and when I was first put in charge, I put a lot of importance on deadlines. I’d give people one week to take care of Job X, two for Z, three and a half for Y, ask their opinions of their own capabilities for Q. It seemed to work pretty well; it got projects that had been frozen for a while moving again, at least.
With self-imposed deadlines, or when pushing deadlines on others, the big thing to remember is to make them realistic when possible. This, of course, is a highly subjective process, requiring you to take into account skills, capabilities, and interests. For some people, writing a 500 word essay a day isn’t too big a stretch; for others, it’s unreasonable due to skill constraints; still others would just plain go nuts having to string words together like that for any period of time. Art tends to take longer than the equivalent volume of prose, particularly when the artist is a perfectionist. But regardless of what constitutes realistic, the goal needs to seem achievable to the person trying to meet it—yes, even if that person is yourself. Impossible goals tend to result in people giving up because it doesn’t matter anyway, but possible ones, particularly barely-possible ones, are grand motivators as often as not.
How do we function with deadlines? We appreciate them for the good they do, and focus on it; treat them as challenges rather than as threats. In their helpful forms, they’re what keep us regular; we need to remember that, even on nights when it’s close to bedtime and nothing’s been written or days when there’s still a lot of the day to get the silly post finished. I made a point once to MacGuffen over Twitter: “The love of deadlines is the life of the blogger. The fear of deadlines is her death.” When the deadline is a challenge and a tool, it can only help you. But when it turns into a source of fear in its own right, it’s as likely as not going to slow you down at best and stall you completely at worst.
How do you get along with your deadlines?
