“It’s up to you to make everyday as perfect as possible. It’s a question of will and discipline.”
—Karl Lagerfeld

Deadlines.

Loved, hated, held, broken. By their very nature they are a limit, and in one way or another thus always associated with some form of pressure. For me, they have often been a marker of where my ‘free’ time ends – when a deadline approaches it is time to dig down, dig deep, and finish what I need to do (or, if it’s my own personal deadline, maybe decide that it isn’t that important, and ignore it).

I’m good at distracting myself. There’s always things to do, people to see, sleep to be had. If other people are depending on my work being done at a certain time, my only problem is the limited hours in the final days before the deadline. I get things done, but always wish I would’ve had more time. If the only person affected is me, I can always to it Later™. I’ve tried making deals with myself, but I can always argue my way out of it and talk myself into reaping whatever benefits there are anyway, or ignore whatever punishment I’ve come up with. I’m my own worst motivator.

But today I had something of a revelation about deadlines:

They are everywhere, always – we just do not see them for what they are: The time you have to be at work, be back from your lunch break, when you need to go to bed. Planes, trains and buses with fixed departure times. Travel. Weekends. School. Opening hours.

Life is built up of a multitude of intertwining deadlines, but for most of them we do not see an end, we see a beginning. At each deadline, something new begins or takes over. They are transitions. Opportunities.

I think, from now on, that I shall try to view deadlines not as the last chance to finish something, but as a first chance of beginning something new.