Do you work well under deadlines?

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Gaze

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I've always struggled with working under deadlines? It seems to restrict creativity or productivity when the focus is meeting the deadline rather than completing the work properly, learning it well, etc.

Deadlines often feel restrictive and hurt motivation and makes it less likely that I will actually get the task done, while having a working deadline or focusing more on completing the goal is more helpful than focusing on completing the task by a specific time.

This works fairly well in school, but I'm not sure how well this works in the workplace. I think most people don't really have a choice about deadlines. Either you meet them or you don't.
 
I've struggled with deadlines because I've had real problems with unhealthy perfectionism. It's been a real problem in my studies and things that really matter to me. Deadlines help though as I will usually complete in time and I'll have to wrap up whatever I'm doing. Or in case it's a super daunting task I'll panic untill the last minute at how overwhelming the whole thing is and just burst it out of me by due date! ;D I'm INFPish in that sense. I tend to procrastinate. It's all due to perfectionistic tendencies.

Generally I can't do things to a level I'd be happy with. I have been working on it for years, trying to be spontaneous, do things deliberately "sloppy", live in the moment, and be aware of what is the appropriate level of effort for tasks, but it's still something that's a constant pain in my butt.

It's not really been a problem at the jobs I've done for money, except on a few occasions when there's been a misunderstanding as to how thoroughly something's done. ...but it's resulted in some funny things like me writing a simplified manual for a program because the official one didn't work in practice and now it's used to train newcomers... unofficially. ...or being sent to organize a shelf and ending up reorganizing the entire storage, redesingning the whole system of organization and purging all the stuff that had been lying around for a decade. No one's ever been upset... just confused and a little perplexed maybe as to who'd go through all the trouble...
but all in all it's really taxing on me. Paradoxically doing things half assed also stresses me. I'm procrastinating right now... That's why I'm on this forum though I should be beavering away. ...so it's still a problem. :m069:
 
Oh no, I dislike deadlines with a vengeance. Can't totally relax until they've passed, and even then my mind continues to ruminate on them. It's so distracting.
 
I work well with them. They motivate me to start my work early. If they don't exist I kinda flake off. If I'm in a setting where there are no deadlines, I will purposefully create them in my head to get my work done.
 
I don't do well with deadlines. I work most efficiently when I can schedule my time based levels of my mental and physical energy.
 
I like deadlines because it forces people to commit to the task and goal at hand, and this is useful when there is teamwork involved. If we waited for everyone to take their time with everything they did, we'd get nowhere.

That being said, I personally don't need them. I believe that if you're doing something you enjoy or are interested in, you won't be needing a deadline to motivate you.

I don't think that's the purpose of deadlines really; not as a motivation or to spitefully restrict someone, but to keep everyone going and not distracted or procrastinating, especially when there are others depending on you or your part of the work. So, in my eyes, respecting deadlines shows a good work ethic in the person.
 
Reverie said:
I've struggled with deadlines because I've had real problems with unhealthy perfectionism. It's been a real problem in my studies and things that really matter to me. Deadlines help though as I will usually complete in time and I'll have to wrap up whatever I'm doing. Or in case it's a super daunting task I'll panic untill the last minute at how overwhelming the whole thing is and just burst it out of me by due date! ;D I'm INFPish in that sense. I tend to procrastinate. It's all due to perfectionistic tendencies. :m069:
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This is me to the letter :D. My perfectionism makes me worry and wait and wait and wait until the last minute than I knock something out which is good enough but which never really meets the expectation I have for myself or what others expect. I am always disappointing someone, in my mind, by not exceeding their expectations.

Peppermint said:
I don't do well with deadlines. I work most efficiently when I can schedule my time based levels of my mental and physical energy.
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This^^^. I have to be a particular frame of mind to get certain things done or else, I won't pick it up.

Deadlines can motivate me in some ways, especially at the last minute, to strip away all the unnecessary stuff, and get down to the nitty gritty of the bare minimum I need to do to finish the project so that I can get it in. But it's not ideally what I'd like to do.

My problem is projects always seem much larger or harder than they are. And the more time I have to complete something, the more overwhelmed I get, so I tend to stress out imagining this big ball of work I have to finish which I feel totally unprepared to handle and then I worry, and then procrastinate until I have just a little bit of time left.

But I am a perfectionist. I want to know it all, learn it all, etc. So, if I'm below standard, I feel so ashamed and guilty. Because there's a need in me to always want to exceed expectations or impress but unfortunately, that doesn't happen often because I put so much pressure on myself which only makes me delay, worrying that I can't achieve all that what to achieve *unrealistic expectations* in the time that I have. So, yep.
 
I do. I need them to stay focused, and actually finish the work.
 
The J's say yes, the P's say no. Makes sense! :P

I agree with those who have said that they need the motivation a deadline provides. I am the same way.
 
Ame said:
I've always struggled with working under deadlines? It seems to restrict creativity or productivity when the focus is meeting the deadline rather than completing the work properly, learning it well, etc.

Deadlines often feel restrictive and hurt motivation and makes it less likely that I will actually get the task done, while having a working deadline or focusing more on completing the goal is more helpful than focusing on completing the task by a specific time.

This works fairly well in school, but I'm not sure how well this works in the workplace. I think most people don't really have a choice about deadlines. Either you meet them or you don't.
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i don't have deadlines at work (i work in the janitorial field) but i set them for myself when i'm working around the house or yard.
is that the same thing?
i tend to have several things on the go at once and if i don't put a timeline on projects they take forever to finish.
 
I need deadlines when I am unmotivated to get stuff done. If I am bored or uninterested, a deadline is about the only thing that will make me put forth a concentrated effort.

When I am enjoying something, I so immersed anyway and excited to work on it, deadlines don't matter.
 
Yes. I'm in a business heavily driven by deadlines and I create deadlines for most of my personal endeavors.

It frustrates me when others don't match my level of execution as a deadline looms, particularly when they prefer to stop working if it remains unfinished by the drop-dead date. I've become more sympathetic to peoples' needs for personal time, but it'll still irk me.
 
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purplecrayons said:
I do. I need them to stay focused, and actually finish the work.
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Stormy1 said:
I need deadlines when I am unmotivated to get stuff done. If I am bored or uninterested, a deadline is about the only thing that will make me put forth a concentrated effort.

When I am enjoying something, I so immersed anyway and excited to work on it, deadlines don't matter.
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These mostly sum up me. If it's something I want to get done a deadline helps, but once I start it I get it done, usually way ahead of schedule. Something that's just for me, a deadline doesn't matter...it gets pushed off over and over.
 
If I know something must get done then a deadline is the way to go for me. However, if the deadline seems unrealistic then I have been known to do a bit of a freak out. Usually if it is an easy deadline then I'll try to shoot for getting it done early. I don't like rushing at the very end. That tears my nerves up.
 
I was known to write 10 page essays the night before they were due. What else was I gonna be doing at 2am. Sometimes I love the pressure of getting something done at the very last minute. It is like a game. It makes something that isn't very challenging a bit funner.
 
Stormy1 said:
I was known to write 10 page essays the night before they were due. What else was I gonna be doing at 2am. Sometimes I love the pressure of getting something done at the very last minute. It is like a game. It makes something that isn't very challenging a bit funner.
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I wish I had this ability. This describes the way my wife can go about her work, and I've always been amazed at it.
 
Most of the time.
I can adjust my output, schedule, and the process according to the deadline. Having no deadlines leaves me both confused ('wait, how hard must I do this? I have my own stuff too, but then if I did my stuff, this won't get done, but if I did this, I won't get my stuff done..') and tired (due to having to manage yet another fuzzy targets).

Prolonged work / process, gah D: Who doesn't hate them?

There are time when it did me bad, though. Like [MENTION=5105]MikeINvalid[/MENTION] said; when the deadline feels irresponsible and unreasonable, I freaked out.
 
Without a deadline, I probably wouldn't get things done. Either that or I'd feel the need to finish something as quickly as possible because I wouldn't know how long I was allowed to work on it. So, for me, deadlines are necessary.
 
JGirl said:
i don't have deadlines at work (i work in the janitorial field) but i set them for myself when i'm working around the house or yard.
is that the same thing?
i tend to have several things on the go at once and if i don't put a timeline on projects they take forever to finish.
Click to expand...

Agree. Yeah, sometimes, if I don't set some sort of schedule or deadline for yourself, I'll never get to it in time.
 
I agree with those who said, when the deadlines are unrealistic, it's easy to freak out.
 
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