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Peace with deadlines
I did it! Last weekend, I finished my sixth spiritual adventure novel, sent it to my editor, and he started sending me suggestions immediately. We have a meeting scheduled for Monday, so I needed time to consider and make the changes. Well, I did it! Finished about an hour ago and does it feel great.
It got me thinking about deadlines and how so many of them are self-imposed, stressful, and really unnecessary.
Deadline is a word with a dismaying etymology. It comes from prison guards drawing a line in the dirt. If a prisoner stepped over that line, instant death was theirs. Yikes! Are you sure you want deadlines in your life? Not me.
In order to make peace with commitments I�ve made related to time, I�ve upgraded those agreements to timelines, not deadlines. The thing about timelines is that they feel to me like they can be revised, renegotiated, adapted vis-�-vis deadlines which feel . . . well, deadly. Time, that fickle mistress, is elastic and it will work with us if we will work with it.
How real are your deadlines, dear one? Really real? Or are they really flexible?
Allowing time to be elastic and to support us is a choice we can make for peace.
Congratulations on your new book!
Wouldn't life be so much easier without deadlines! Your post got me thinking. Deadlines are very unnatural. Where in nature do you see things work by deadline? Flowers don't say "alright, we all have bloom by March 20." They bloom naturally when the time is right and when all else in nature is ready. A lot of creativity can be lost in deadlines because you are so determined to get things done by a certain time that your focus gets strayed from the actual product.
posted by katiek on 2/10/2008 6:59 pm