I hate working on deadline. So I avoid it. No, that doesn’t mean that I don’t take jobs with specific delivery dates. I just make sure to finish the work well before it’s due so I don’t have to experience that deadline pressure.
A lot of writers aren’t like that. Years after trading staff positions for freelancing, one of my former Ladies’ Home Journal colleagues would call me and complain about the work crunch that confronted her. After ten years of hearing the same story, I finally couldn’t sympathize any longer. I knew she procrastinated. Of course, she never wanted to turn down work, so she would take on new stories even though she still had to write the ones she had been assigned weeks earlier. Yes, that meant way too much work in way too little time. But she created that deadline-related bottleneck every time.
I do the opposite. Not only do I jump in right away, I make sure to allow myself a buffer. I always set my own personal deadline that’s at least a week—or even a month—ahead of the one I’ve been given. That way if additional work comes up or if the job takes longer than I anticipated, I’m still okay.
This habit came in plenty handy yesterday. A client for whom I ghostwrite/edit a newspaper column had told me that her deadline was on the 14th of this month. It turns out she was wrong by seven days. Luckily, I had already done the research, outlined the piece and roughed out my lead, along with most of my topic sentences and transitions. I had actually planned to write the article the day before, so in my book I was a day behind. Still, I managed to hammer it out and deliver a day early despite the advanced deadline.
Yup. Love that buffer! How about you?
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