Hi hello—
If ever there was a bane of my existence… it’s a deadline. Homework deadlines, project deadlines, work deadlines—I very much loathe them. As a chronic and indulgent procrastinator, any sort of deadline makes my skin crawl and my sense of freedom cringe away and hiss in defiance. I hate anything that locks me into the cage of a specific date or time. Peace and freedom are two of my highest values and deadlines counter both like a sword to the throat.
Or do they?
It’s taken me awhile to develop a tentative alliance with deadlines. While mutual dislike is still there, like rivals who need to team up to defeat a common enemy, I’ve accepted them into my writing process this year. Slowly, of course. Can’t give them too much power over me all at once.
But deadlines are important. For finishing tasks in a timely manner, which includes drafts and edits and all myriad checklists for publication. But also, for reaching new levels of art and creativity. I’m sure we all know that to become a master of any skill requires ten thousand hours of practice of the skill. Without deadlines, I could go weeks without writing a word. Now? I’m producing a weekly web serial and at least one blog post, in theory. That’s at least five thousand words a week. Plus, editing. Add novellas and short stories on top of that, I’m sure I’ll be increasing to ten thousand words a week soon (hopefully by the end of the month to keep up with goals).
I’m going to start actually tracking my word counts as well through the week. Another metric (and rival) to help see how I’m leveling up my craft and skills in showing up to the page. I don’t like tracking really, it feels like another judgmental number pressuring me out of my peaceful comfort zone of procrastination. But how am I ever going to reach my ambitions if I’m more concerned with the perfect tea-blanket-candle ritual for writing over hitting deadlines by typing or editing on my tiny phone screen because this blog post needs to be posted in three minutes! (Not really, but sort of, ha).
So, conclusion? Numbers suck… but not entirely. If I expect to get better no matter the area of life, I need a way to measure where I’ve been and how I’m getting better every day. Some things can’t be measured with numbers, of course. Especially in an artistic realm. But a lot things still can be measured with plain old number keeping. No matter how boring or judgmental their little decimal point eyes are.
Make peace with the numbers in your life. And let’s level up!
Talk soon,
Brittany
