Sweat trickles down their neck as they furiously hurry to accomplish their task. Their hand cramps at the sheer speed of panic as they type on their iPad. Their eyes dart nervously to the clock on the top of the iPad, watching the minutes tick down with growing apprehension. As the clock’s hand inches forward, their eyes start to strain from their intense  concentration. 

Suddenly, sensing they are near the end of their task and with a final blaze of glory they finish, flinging their hands up into the air in a moment of triumph. As they submit their work, they take a peek at the submission time with a sense of pride. 11:55 p.m., they thought, nice, that’s a whole three minutes earlier than last time.

Most everyone has been in a situation where they leave a task to the last minute and that approaching deadline sends them into a last-minute panic to finish. In this situation, it’s easy to look at the deadline and think, “Why does it have to be due now, why can’t I just do it on my time, this deadline just caused me extra stress.” As easy as this is to do, deadlines are actually less of an enemy than they appear. 

Deadlines are essential, as they provide a sense of accountability that makes it much harder to say, “I’ll just get it done tomorrow.” A great example of this that’s prominent this time of year are New Year’s resolutions. These resolutions usually come in the form of a self-determined goal like, “I’m going to exercise more this year”, “I’m going to be a nicer person” or even, “I’m going to stop procrastinating.” These are all great resolutions, but they lack any sort of accountability. Instead of just setting the goal of exercising more, set a specific deadline: by the end of the week, I’m going to go to the gym two times.

Some people may say that a deadline in this situation does nothing as it isn’t hard to just blow off something that is self-enforced with no real consequences. This is a great point and is exactly why there are a couple things to use in combination with a deadline to get that task accomplished. Some ways for someone to add some accountability are setting it up so if they fail to meet the deadline they must do an undesirable task like a chore or have a friend or family member help them stay accountable for their goals. 

All these deadlines may seem overwhelming and unnecessary, but in the end if the task is complete the relief and happiness that comes from that will make that dreadful deadline completely worth it.