SCABs

Deadlines – @SashaMidgley

Sasha Midgley

By Sasha Midgley

 

Deadlines

I don’t know whats wrong with me and why every time I remember I have to write a SCAB it’s with 40 minutes to go before it’s due… This evening was no exception, I was watching TV and ‘SHIT, I HAVE A SCAB TONIGHT.’

  

It’s not that I don’t know I have a SCAB, or that I forgot to set reminders, I just left it until last minute. I am somebody that leaves everything to last minute. No matter how much I try to time manage, no matter how many iPhone notes, masterclasses, scribbled biro on the back of my hand or pleas for my Mum to nag me – I always leave everything to the last minute.

I’ve learnt to accept that that’s just who I am, it’s how I work and at the end of the day deadlines are there for a reason, you can wait until that moment to hand that work in.

deadline

ˈdɛdlʌɪn/

noun

noun: deadline; plural noun: deadlines

1 1.
the latest time or date by which something should be completed.

Maybe I take the piss a bit (this SCAB will be submitted to Marc at 9.59) but at the end of the day

haven’t missed a deadline.

I would like to address that there are a lot of negatives of living life this way and I wouldn’t condone

it – Not having the chance to improve on what you’ve already created and feeling stressed about

the limited amount of time you have left.

Because I left this so late and I need to pad out the 500+ words, I thought it would be a nice touch

to include some facts to help fellow procrastinators feel better about themselves.

Procrastination can feel like a self-destructive compulsion, but a lot of research suggests it can be a good thing, whether or not your deadline gets moved. Professor Adam Grant, an American psychologist and author, says we should make time to procrastinate as a way to fuel creativity. In his book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, he argues that creative people tend to procrastinate more.

Anna Abramowski, a British psychologist who studied the construct of procrastination at Cambridge University (and she handed in her masters thesis on time), says people who “actively procrastinate display a certain level of self-reliance, autonomy and self-confidence because they are aware of the risk of subjecting themselves to last-minute pressures and still consciously decide to. That can be a good thing, because it stimulates creativity and enables them to engage in multiple tasks at the same time.”

Hear that? Procrastination can fuel creativity!

Work that I’m not inspired by is definitely motivated by fear and an approaching deadline.

I’m going to set myself a goal from now until my next SCAB, 25th November (put it in your calendar) to aim to get started on things I have to do the day I’m set them.

I’m going to make a concerted effort to record this challenge and let you know how it goes because that sounds like another really exciting SCAB.

If you are like me and do leave things last minute – don’t beat yourself up.

Just try your hardest not to procrastinate and NEVER miss a deadline.

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