We’ve all faced them: deadlines. The question becomes, how do you deal with them? Are you someone who does everything right away? Do you find you unrealistically give yourself deadlines you can’t possibly commit to? Do you wait until the last minute and then cram everything together?
With writing, I’ve found a lot of people like to wait until they are “inspired”. But what if you don’t have time for that? What if you need to get some pages done because people are waiting to read them?
Well, the best thing is not to panic, which of course sends me into immediate worry-induced-whirlwinds. 😉 Once my brain stops spinning, I go into what I like to term “don’t-talk-to-me-because-I’m-focused-and-will-destroy-you-if-you-bother-me” mode. A little rough around the edges, but the work gets done. 🙂
So how do YOU get yourself to slow down and get the work done without ACTUALLY slowing down, since you don’t have time to?
I use deadlines to define how much time I can put it off until I have no choice but to do it. Usually ends with a less than perfect product, a lot of four letter words, and a promise to start earlier the next time …like a day!!
i’m not fond of deadlines, either. how i’ve learned to deal with them is through trial and error. and, i’ve discovered that it works best for me to set time aside daily to work on what i’m writing. waiting till the last minute is waaaay too stressful for me, a big error. since i’ve gotten older, and had more writing to do, it definitely was a trial to realize what was best and most efficient for me. when i waited too long, my writing didn’t turn out the way i’d really like it to be. when i began soon after i knew the deadline, everything went more smoothly. i do like to wait a bit, if necessary, to get into the mood i need for writing, but that’s usually less than a day. i like having the time to re-read, revise, and rewrite before a deadline. that’s the way i put out my best work.