WR - Deadlines

2009-03-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

I had a much better rant planned out, however, I don't have time to sit down and make the kind of elegant arguments I had planned about an issue that affects many people.

Instead, to keep with the schedule I planned, I'm going to rant about why I can't rant. Deadlines.

More importantly, the inability of some people to make them.

Now, I like to be a spontaneous person. When a friend calls up and asks if I randomly want to do something, I'm often on board for it.

However, if you're going to set a deadline for, oh say, a huge class project you might want to give it a deadline. All quarter the prof for my class has been saying that it will be due roughly by the final. Today, I get an email about how its due Friday.

The sad fact of the matter is students do stuff last minute. Even when we don't want to and I have yet to figure out why. It's not like I want to stay up the night before doing it. It's not like I don't try to sit down and get it done earlier. But when you sit down to do something weeks before something is due, you find that you are faced often with lots of possibilities on how to approach a project and the best way to actually do the project. Doing things the last minute saves you from this overwhelming step.

Weeks before something is due I'm usually suck with one of two options:
A) There are so many possibilities on what I could do that I can't pick one.
B) There are no possibilities.

So either way, I don't have a clue to go about starting.

When I can start counting down hours before its due, then figuring out what to do happens. Either by just picking an idea and running with it or by just forcing an idea onto the page, like it or not. For some reason I just can't manage to do that weeks before.

This is why deadlines are important. In my world, they tell you when your project will be done. I know it will be done. I don't know how, I don't know any of the details, just that something will be done. I mange it every time like many other students do. Sometimes, it comes out better than others, but there will be something to turn in.

Which leads back to why not having a strict deadline is a problem. Obviously, it can be pushed back (if I say it will be done Monday and you move it to Wednesday it is not messed up since it would have been done Monday), but if you push it forward, it ruins the cycle. I had decided in my head that this project would be done Monday.

Monday, I would have a project finished, one way or another, that I could turn in.

Which is why when you move the deadline to Friday, I panic. And I get why the prof did that. I do. He needs time to look them over and put them together for a big class presentation we're having after the final.

However, he is messing with my reality. Friday must become Monday for me.

And after multiple all-nighters this quarter, I'm afraid I'm looking at 48 hours with little to no sleep.

This. This is why deadline must be made early on. I'm not saying this rational is logical, but neither is making up deadlines days before you want a quarter long project due.

The Best Laid Plans

2009-03-11T02:28:00.000-07:00

I crave structure. So! This blog is going to have a schedule.

Monday- Review of something
Tuesday- Something that makes me happy
Wednesday- Mandatory rant
Thursday- (no requirement)
Friday- (no requirement)
Saturday- Person of the week
Sunday- Drawing of the week

Why? Because Monday is a good day to start thinking about things.
I never have any luck with Tuesdays, so best to think happy thoughts.
Mid-week I'll have figured out something to be frustrated with.
Thursday and Friday, hopefully I will be doing work or something fun. ... not necessarily in that order, sadly.
Saturday its fun to surf people's stuff instead of do homework, while drawing, which hopefully will leading to a drawing on Sunday.

I'm going to give this a try starting tomorrow.

Dilemmas of a Dreamer

WR - Deadlines

The Best Laid Plans