I love Douglas Adams's comment about the whooshing sound that you get as a deadline flies past. I think we all recognise that. And most of us miss deadlines, at least from time to time, if only because we’ve been so busy organising our lives around some other, even bigger deadline.
Mind you, if life had no deadlines, I’m not sure I’d ever get anything done. Whether I’m trying to finish writing a book when I promised it to my publisher, or simply trying to get dinner cooked before the family have fallen asleep from hunger and exhaustion, deadlines are not just unavoidable – they also motivate us to get on and do things.
So it helps to recognise that a deadline is not necessarily a bad thing. They may make ...