Deadlines are brutally effective for me. They got me through my first online programming course when none of the self-paced ones did and have continued to be effective for a year and a half of self-study. I’m taking a few MOOCs right now and a week ago, I was starting to fall behind. But then I had 3 deadlines last sunday. Between Tuesday of last week and sunday at 9pm, I easily put in 30 hours of work and got mostly caught up. It was the same in college. When there’s an imminent deadline, I just don’t think about doing anything else. It feels great actually.
Deadlines are brutally effective for me. They got me through my first online programming course when none of the self-paced ones did and have continued to be effective for a year and a half of self-study. I’m taking a few MOOCs right now and a week ago, I was starting to fall behind. But then I had 3 deadlines last sunday. Between Tuesday of last week and sunday at 9pm, I easily put in 30 hours of work and got mostly caught up. It was the same in college. When there’s an imminent deadline, I just don’t think about doing anything else. It feels great actually.