Deadlines
Design : Canva
How do you feel about deadlines? Do you feel anxious
about them or just embrace the feeling of accomplishing the task within a
stipulated time frame? Do deadlines make you productive or break your confidence?
In this blog post, I will share my viewpoints on deadlines; what they mean to
me, and how they have affected me.
Deadlines
are nothing but some timelines to achieve various goals. They can be regarded
as the time frames allotted to accomplish some goals or tasks. One can have a
common deadline for various goals or different deadlines for different goals.
It depends on personal preferences. These deadlines can be set by himself or
through an external agent. As someone believing in the power of habits, I try
to maintain consistency in some tasks like meditating 10-15 minutes a day,
exercising for 10-15 minutes, spending 15-30 minutes learning German on
Duolingo, brushing my teeth twice, singing for at least 5 minutes, reading at
least 10 pages of a book, etc. I believe in the immense power of compounding
and the joy of doing simple tasks, no matter how mundane they might seem, at
times. I haven’t tried to investigate or quantify the effect of such activities.
All I know is that I get benefits by doing them.
Let’s
talk about tasks that require a conscious effort to complete them. For example,
writing a blog post, recording, or posting a music video on social media requires
prior planning and more effort. In such tasks, I feel more productive when
there’s a deadline because I don’t feel distracted and get more things done in
time. For example, I completed #BlogChatterA2Z 2023 challenge beyond my belief
with a very hectic schedule, and the satisfaction that I received from completing
it, is simply inexplicable. This deadline to complete #BlogChatterA2Z 2023
challenge was external as it was decided by the BlogChatter Team. For completing
personal tasks within some deadlines, I use the Pomofocus app to set the
Pomodoro timer to improve focus on the task at hand.
So, do my arguments imply that we should design
deadlines for difficult tasks/goals in our lives? Absolutely, Not! There are some
goals, or you can say wishes, for example, marriage, buying property or a car,
etc., which are uncertain and affect your life. I would consider them as life
decisions that should not be taken under the pressure of any deadline because life
surprises you with its happenings that are beyond your control, but if you’re very
fond of setting deadlines, you too can set some tentative flexible deadlines
for such life decisions. Then you have to be prepared to make any modifications
in your deadline, in case life throws a curveball.
Deadlines
are acceptable if they improve your productivity. They should not be taken
seriously if they bring any kind of mental pressure or stress, thereby
hampering your productivity. They should never be synonymous with dead ends.
All Rights Reserved!
Swati Sarangi
05.04.2024
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