I’m pretty sure I’m not alone when it comes to feeling the stress of an upcoming deadline; I am sure you can relate to it and so you know how I feel when a deadline is looming over you but you still haven’t finished the work yet; it’s not a good feeling let me tell you.
I like to think that I’m an organised fellow so I plan ahead when a deadline has been set; what needs to be done when, when I should show it to the boss, that kind of stuff. The sad thing is when things don’t go according to plan. Life is never clear cut and sometimes the unexpected happens, maybe you lost a file, maybe the computer crashed, maybe the power went out, whatever it is something delayed you and now the deadline is closer but you haven’t finished the work yet, that sucks.
But the worst types of deadlines are the unexpected ones. The way I see it, there two types of unexpected deadlines:
The sudden or literally unexpected ones: this is when your boss calls you into his office and tells you that he is giving you a new project. Depending upon who you are and what you have going on you will either be really excited about this or you will be groaning internally; for me it would be the internal groan. Whatever the case you accept the project because it’s your boss and you don’t have a choice, so then they explain what the task is and you start thinking about how you are going to finish it, and then they tell you that you need to get it done in an impossibly short amount of time like tomorrow or the next hour. I cannot properly describe how tense I get when that happens. Sometimes I get so tense that I get a cramp, my body reacts that badly to it.
The pushed up deadlines: This is when a deadline has been set up and there is a lot of time between now and D-day; like maybe a month, so you decide to start on it later and get the other stuff done. Then one day the boss comes in and says, “Hey remember that deadline I said was a month away? Yeah, we have pushed it up; now it’s a week away, make sure you get it done on time.” And I’m just sitting there thinking why boss, why do you do this to me? You know I have other stuff I need to finish; after all you gave it to me, and now you’re doing this?!
Thankfully these situations don’t happen to me that often but when it does happen I tend to have an internal meltdown. Also, I immediately have to put myself in top gear and I run around and get so tense it’s like someone injected a mixture of coffee, sugar and adrenaline directly into my system, and the crash after it’s all done is just as bad; I feel so tired that I just want to fall on my bed and die for a few hours; in fact I feel so drained that I wish someone would carry me to the bed.
Before I end this, there is one more type of deadline that happens every working day that I want to talk about. Technically it isn’t really a deadline but I consider it one anyway and that is reaching work on time. You see I am a night owl so I don’t like waking up early in the morning but unfortunately I have a 9 to 5 (or later!) job so I need to get up early so that I can finish all my morning rituals (you know what I am talking about) and leave the house so I can reach work on time. Most of the time I do okay but sometimes I get late and it’s those times that really get to me. The clock becomes my enemy and I wish that time didn’t exist; that I had the power to control time, either is fine.
Well I don’t want to leave on a sour note so I’ll end this post with this. You can plan ahead as much as you want but you have to realise that you can’t control everything. Sometimes you will miss a deadline and be late and your boss will yell at you for it. But that’s okay, your life isn’t going to end and neither is the world; if you can accept that then you should do okay in life. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to make sure that my posts upload on time. Please work, please work, please work!
Alternative Yoga 