For over 8 years I worked in the production end of publishing. Part of every week was the Status Meeting where my individuals in the department would meet with the Production Coordinator to let him know what stage each of our projects was and when it could be expected to move to the next person in the process. That discipline of projecting how long a particular step would take and making sure my time was budgeted accordingly became second nature to me in that world.
Even now, deadlines motivate me more than just about anything else. I just hung some work last month that had had no deadline for over a year and it languished for months on end because I had no real motivation to put in the time to finish them. It wasn't until I had an actual date and time scheduled to hang them that a lot of the finishing work (attaching hardware, doing finish paint and varnish coats) got done.
When I don't have a deadline, I'll often create one for myself. "Ode" has a deadline of 3/25 because if it's not done I can't put it in a joint show and I must face the wrath of the coordinator. But there's another, earlier deadline I'm considering. I've looked at a submission deadline of 3/15 for an upcoming Lark publication. I think this piece would fit into their parameters, so I'm looking at my schedule to see if it can be done. I'm pretty certain it can at this point. (Because of their mandates for photo submissions I can't really use photos of past work as submissions.)
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