End of day v.s End of week

I’m sure you’ve been there before.

Doing your homework last minute because you spent all week playing video games again.

Okay…maybe you didn’t do it exactly the way I would, but I’m sure you can relate.

Throughout your entire high school and college career, maybe you’ve heard the phrase “you got until the end of the week to turn ___ in”.

And if you’re a professional procrastinator like I used to be, that meant you had more time to do anything else but work on the assignment.

But why put it off until the last minute?

Because we work best under pressure, or so we tell ourselves.

Lately, however, I’ve been using that same strategy to increase my productivity with my writing.

I’m actually doing it to create this newsletter as we speak.

So, if something’s off, now you know why lol.

Just imagine for a moment you and everyone else in English class have a paper to turn in by the end of the month.

The teacher announces, “you have until Monday to turn in your rough draft.”

But what if you turned in that rough draft by the end of the day?

Sure, it might suck, but odds are you’re going to get some massive feedback for your 2nd draft.

Then, the following day, you make all those changes and turn it back in.

Once more, it’s probably going to get marked up and need some more work.

Suppose you keep doing this until Friday.

Well, once Monday rolls around, you’re already on your 5th draft while everyone else is barely turning in their 1st draft.

You’re going to be way further ahead than everyone else.

This is the power of creating end of day deadlines.

Combine this with a 1-2 hour timer and you’ll be off to the races in no time.

And don’t worry about making “the thing” perfect either.

The goal here is simply to get it out there and get the feedback to improve it and make it better next time.

Use fake deadlines for your next project.

Set yourself a 60-120 minute timer.

Write out 1-3 things you want to finish by the end of the day.

And don’t worry about making it perfect, just worry about getting it done.

Until next time.

Your brother Alex out.

Peace.