The Last Minute

I remember many a night in college and high school where I was up late the night before trying to get some school project done at the last minute. I am reminded of those times right now as I just finished typing up the Errata for my book. The Production Editor told me “Tuesday would be great” as far as a deadline. The previous two nights, I did some of the work, but I procrastinated it to some extent. I rationalize it as simply being “too tired,” but the minute I started on something else, I was a bit less tired.

There were plenty of evenings during the course of this book where I stayed up really late to get something in on a “deadline” for the publisher, something I could have easily had done several days before had I buckled down. Heck, I remember sitting out by the pool in Singapore in April of 2000 on a business trip working on getting several chapters done for a “deadline” for my editor. I’ve done similar things for work too. Just this morning, my boss called me up at about 9am and said “I need this done before an 11am meeting I have with my boss.” It was the result of poor planning on his part that I had almost no time, but that deadline got me to finish it damned quickly. Fortunately, it was basically doable.

One thing I’ve noticed is that I tend to perform much better when others set deadlines for me. Maybe the pressure of a last-minute deadline allows me to focus my thoughts more and get it done. With others setting deadlines, there’s always the risk that the deadlines will be too unrealistic for the task att hand. If I set my own deadlines, I do not do as well at actually making them for some reason. Perhaps it’s because I don’t want to let others down…