Why you do your best work right before that deadline.

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Daily Five, an Experimental podcast by Aurooba, where I talk about something for five minutes. So let's get to it, shall we? I was reading an article by someone on the internet and it was talking about how some of their best presentations have been ones that they came up with in the last moment, you know, in the last two hours before they were supposed to go up on the stage, those were their best slides,

[00:00:37] it was the best talk they gave. And you know, that's a very common thing. It's a very common phenomenon, not just in the conference circuit, but also just like in school, you know, at work, we, a lot of us do wait till the last [00:01:00] minute to do stuff, and I've definitely been like that before as well, and it took me some time to improve that.

[00:01:10] But even now, there are lots of things that I do at the last minute, and I've been thinking about why, and I've been thinking about how a lot of people are really proud of that. Sometimes I have been proud of that, but in fact, It's not something to be proud of. You know? Why do we often create some of our best work right before a deadline?

[00:01:36] I think there can be a few different reasons why that happens. One, you're actually a perfectionist, and when there's a deadline looming, you're able to let go of your perfectionism and really engage with your work and do it without feeling like you have to make it absolutely perfect. And the product of that is something...perfect[00:02:00].

[00:02:01] Um, there is also... people who really like the adrenaline, they need the adrenaline in order to feel deeply engaged and fully focused in their work. And having a deadline can really help with that. And then I guess there are procrastinators. That's definitely a third camp, but I'm not sure that it is. I don't think people procrastinate for no reason.

[00:02:30] There's usually a deeper reason for why people procrastinate, and I think it's either, in this case, because they need the adrenaline or they are perfectionists, and the deadline being so close to it helps them not be perfectionists. The other problem is that when you do stuff at the last. It's really hard to work in a team.

[00:02:53] It's really good if you know no one's relying on you or no one is depending on you [00:03:00] to do your work first so that they can do theirs. But when you're working in a team, you know, this means that you're not giving other people ample time to do their work because they're waiting till the last minute to do for you to do yours or,

[00:03:17] there are ways to mitigate that. I suppose. You could give yourself an earlier deadline or change the overall project deadline so that people are able to get more time even after you do your work at the last minute for you. But I think the better thing is to figure out a way to get your work done ahead of time and not just on time or right under that deadline.

[00:03:47] because whether you do it because you need the adrenaline or because you are a perfectionist who has trouble letting go of the perfectionism, that level of stress and [00:04:00] anxiety that it inevitably creates, it's not sustainable. It's not something that you can maintain, and there will be a time when it trips you up.

[00:04:09] There will be a time when you find that you cannot in fact meet that deadline or you know, made an error in how long you thought it would take you to do it; and it's just safer to figure out ways to do your work without needing to be so 11th-hour-y about it. So we'll talk about that in another episode:

[00:04:34] What can you do instead? So that is what I've been thinking about today.

[00:04:45] Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.