On the coolness of deadlines

I am always on a deadline.

Deadlines are part of my job—there’s always a proposal package or awards submission or groundbreaking ceremony or something that imposes a time constraint.

Some people can’t work like this, and I get that. We talk about the “daily grind”—the abrasive connotation that work actually wears away at us, like a fine-grit sandpaper to the brain. Deadlines are part of that, wrapped up as they are in anxiety, in sensing the minutes eroding away from us, the time of our reckoning coming closer and closer.

Despite the anxiety, I have come to view deadlines as an essential part of my workflow. Perhaps more than that, too—I’ve come to see them as part of my identity. That’s because I’ve embraced a quip from Terry McDonell, the former editor of the Time Inc. Sports Group:

Whatever kind of work you do, it’s always cooler to be on a deadline.

And it is! It’s cool to be on a deadline. It’s cool to be rushing around the office with a sense of urgency, to feel the minutes ticking by, to anxiously watch the pages tick out into the printer tray, to confirm that FedEx can get the package to the client on time.

If only self-imposed deadlines were as cool as the ones that come from outside…