> But the temptation is always to just stick to the deadline and refuse to extend it, because once you extend it once then everyone knows it isn't actually a ha

> But the temptation is always to just stick to the deadline and refuse to extend it, because once you extend it once then everyone knows it isn't actually a hard deadline and the deadline will get extended again and the thing will never get released. Personally, I've seen so many "super duper important must-meet" deadlines which in the end turned out to be completely unimportant, that I've decided long ago that I'm not gonna do any more overtime to make any deadlines. It's quite a sobering experience as a developer to stress over making a heroic effort to meet a deadline only to see after the deadline passed that actually it wasn't really so make or break after all, and that there was plenty of time to fix the issues afterwards. It's really not worth it to abuse your body and your mind by working overtime and spending too much time in a bad posture behind a computer just to make someone else happy. Of course, I'll still do my best (I always do), and I might even agree to moderate amounts of overtime where it's warranted (as in: not because it is necessary because of shitty planning), but I'm not putting any emotional energy into deadlines, ever again.