None of us plan things very well. Some of us do precious little at all. Whilst ‘winging it’ has its merits, it is not necessarily the route to a stress free life.
But there is a fine line between being prepared, and loosing that spark of genius you get from doing something hard against a deadline – it hurts like hell, but often it is our best work.
Here are a few things you can do to keep that balance between last minute panic and adrenaline fuelled performance:
1. Know what you need to do, but actively schedule it for the last minute. Sound a bit daft? Well, think about. The risk you have with doing things last minute is that you forget to do them – well if you plan that the 2 days before you have to hand in an essay are going to be spent doing it, then this falls away.
2. Give yourself your own submission dates. Need to get a report in sometime this quarter and as a result can’t motivate yourself to get it done? Well, set yourself a time and date by which you are going to e-mail it across to your boss – once it has gone, you can’t do anything about it.
3. Use others to pester you to do get it done. We will usually go the path of least resistance, so if every time I see my wife she says “have you fixed the shower yet”, the chances are I’ll get it done, and get it done well.
4. Allow yourself only one review. This works very well with written work – the beauty of doing something last minute is you don’t have the time to edit and review it into mediocrity. By only giving yourself one run through it before submission then you get the best of both world.
5. Write it in one sitting. The other thing that drives quality in last minute tasks is that your entire focus and thought pattern in on the task – commit yourself to writing or doing your task in one sitting and you artificially create this environment.
6. Use other events as a proxy. “I can’t meet my friends down the pub until I have finished this” is a great motivator for getting things done. This does require a bit more self-discipline not to just give up and go, but combine with point 3 so that if you do turn up having not done it they pester you all night!
7. Limit how long you have your resources. Make sure your research books need returning to the library at a certain date, or the tools you need must be given back to your Dad by the weekend.
Right – now go and get yourself into a panic!
