I use deadlines as a heuristic. Without them I have a hard time focusing my work at all. That doesn’t mean I let myself be abused by arbitrary deadlines. Deadl

I use deadlines as a heuristic. Without them I have a hard time focusing my work at all. That doesn’t mean I let myself be abused by arbitrary deadlines. Deadlines are useful to me, however I have always advocated the use of periodic check-ins to give us a chance to adjust our course. It’s weird when people make claims that are so easily shown to be wrong, as this author does, except some of that might be him using “deadline” to mean something less heuristic and more draconian than I do. I published a regular feature in IEEE Computer magazine for 12 months. I never missed a deadline. But the way I did it was by using a series of fake deadlines (up to three). I asked the editor not to tell me what the real deadlines were. I missed at most two of the fake deadlines during that year. The system worked well for me because I don’t like to stop daydreaming until the last minute. Daydreaming and playing are divergent activities that generate value; but convergent activities are needed to actually deliver.