I’ve always been a deadline person. Without deadlines I don’t think I’ll ever complete anything. Deadlines create in me a focus. Deadlines are finish lines and I love finish lines.
I’ve come to realize that without deadlines, I slide into procrastination in some areas and in others, I lock into perfectionism. I guess it all depends on what I’m working on. Regardless, I’ve come to realize that deadlines work really good for me.
I think Jesus worked with deadlines. I believe He was time managed by God. It was an appointed time when He came into the world as a baby. It was at an appointed time when He began his ministry. And it was at an appointed time when He died and resurrected. Appointed time and the fulfillment of time all point toward deadlines.
To be honest, I think we all need deadlines. Since I have a deadline on a project I’m working on, I decided I needed to research a little on deadlines. Here’s something I read this morning… “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” That’s Parkinson’s law. Cyril Parkinson wrote an essay that later became a book on the work progress of the British civil service. It seems we all have a natural tendency to expand our work within the time frame of our deadlines. Maybe that’s why I stopped working on my project and started researching on deadlines – I still have time! 🙂
I love what Mark Batterson wrote concerning deadlines, “Without a DEADLINE nothing gets done. For perfectionists and procrastinators, DEADLINES are LIFELINES.” Good stuff!
So if you have a deadline coming up… focus, focus, focus. You need a deadline!
Happy working!
