I'm good at my job - if I wasn't I shouldn't be doing it. There are moments within this job when I'm pretty sure the fickle finger of fate is pointing at me and bathing me in ‘the kid done good' lucky starshine. There are other moments, however, which aren't nearly so blessed. Those moments have a name and that name is Deadline.

I'm not good with deadlines. I used to think I was, but I was wrong. As a student I would live off the nervous energy produced by leaving everything to the last minute, then pull an all-nighter to cram in the work required to write the essay. I'd push back the need for research and study until there simply wasn't time to achieve anything, at all, if I didn't start doing something, like, right now. This ‘push it until you panic' strategy worked back then. Faced by the overwhelming pressure of an imminent deadline I would buzz on the adrenalin and get the job done. Finally.

Back then, of course, I was only hurting myself if I didn't deliver an assignment on time. I was only sabotaging my own social life if I didn't go out because I had work to do - so I stayed home and didn't do the work either. Which meant I was preoccupied and filled with a vague heaviness until I would just get on with it. Finish the assignment early when I had some spare time, so I could enjoy the freedom it brings? I wouldn't know what that felt like.

Nowadays I call a spade a spade - or, Time Management Issues, as it's known in my office.

Like a lot of people, I need a deadline to focus my mind, to give me a goal. Deadlines help me to structure my week and plan my time. Unfortunately, also like a lot of people, my agenda is a moveable feast - a banquet of meetings that hop from one day to another, last minute projects which fly in for immediate attention, and general work stuff which always seems to take longer than originally planned.

Do you plan for thinking time? The time required to cogitate and percolate and formulate an idea? The time which may look like postponement, a dragging of feet, but I like to see as ‘settling' - giving the thoughts time to get themselves in order. Maybe this is where I'm going wrong.

My love-hate relationship with deadlines is a bad habit. It probably needs breaking. But this is where I'm cautious. After all, in one topsy-turvy way or another it's worked for me so far. More or less. Change my habits now and I could bring a whole teetering stack of cards tumbling down. Or not.

Either way, don't even get me started on procrastination.

Kerrie Finch is the Director of FinchFactor, an Amsterdam-based PR consultancy focused on advertising, digital and design.

kerrie@finchfactor.com

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