How do you react to deadlines?
May 22, 2008 · Print This Article
Me, I love deadlines - and a daily deadline is the best. Long term projects I end up doing at the last minute anyway so they feel like a daily deadline.
Take this speech I am giving tomorrow night. I’ve known about it for weeks. And I’ve been gathering bits and pieces to put in it over that time and doing a lot of thinking but I’ve not been able to gear myself up to write it until tonight. Tonight. I am ashamed to write it down. But it is just the way I’ve always been.
The more nervous I am the harder I find it to get started. I’m a bit nervous. Public speaking is nothing like radio.
Interestingly it’s the opposite with Groover - the more nervous he is, the more he prepares until he over-prepares and (he says) loses all his spontaneity.
No danger of me over-preparing.
Having said that, because I’ve lived with my topic for so long now and because I’m interested in it - I found it very easy to write and hopefully deliver tomorrow.
I was the same with exams - especially the big ones - and job interviews.
And I know I’m doing it! I just can’t seem to make myself change my behaviour.
So what about you? Are you a last-minute Laurissa or a pre-prepared Pete?
I’m exactly the same. It’s terrible! At least this time I have a medical certificate!
I’m a pre-prepared Pete, with last minute revisions, adjustments and modifications. What is the subject of your speech?
From Mulgaphones to Digital Radio
It’s basically about the start of radio in WA and what we can expect in the future with the advent of digital radio.
I will have to look up a Mulgaphone.
I am like you, perhaps even worse. Usually when I am presenting I will have a few notes and dive in. Not so different from my blogging style. My wife is exactly the opposite. I would be a hopeless people manager. She is a good one. I almost always get there, but I sometimes wonder how.
Now on to writing a blog post for the Aussie Bloggers Blog. I knew it was due around now. Well it is Monday. What should I write about?
I’m a last minute Laurissa.
But it somehow always manages to work out. I think the trick is not to leave it until the absolute last minute so that you are woefully under-prepared.
I am a bit of a combination. When I have a project I like to do some basic planning, outlining, research etc and then leave it for a bit and just let it mull. When ideas come into my head I will then write them down then a couple of days before the deadline I will bring it all together.
I’ve learned to do an assignment weeks in advance, mull over it for a couple of weeks and make necessary changes.
For my first public speaking I read off pages because I was sooo nervous. Now I have a few keys words on a sheet and expand and ad-lib. Introductions and conclusions are very important. I could only expand and ad-lib one I gained more confidence.
I love doing assignments now and wish I could go back to high school and redo all those wonderful history and English essays I just skimmed over back then.
I sometimes feel I am an anal-retentive compulsive-obsessive perfectionist……..not that there’s anything wrong with that……..