Do Deadlines Really Work?

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How can we get some more of that motivationa ump when it's just something that we made up for ourselves? Ye, that's a great question. And i would say that first, you set up these interim dead lines, right? You set up, let's say you're trying to finish,let's say it's a turn paper. If you set up a dead line for yourself, say, a month before it's do i want to have the first draft done? Or if t ha longer work, won't have the first chapter done? Then do that. Impose that deadline on yourself. Even faked deadlines, even self imposed deadlines, are effective. They're not

Christopher Cox discusses how to leverage deadlines to curb procrastination, improve productivity, and deliver better results.

— YOU’LL LEARN —

1) The worst possible deadline you can give yourself

2) The trick restaurateurs and theater artists use to consistently deliver quality

3) The trick to making self-imposed deadlines more motivating

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— ABOUT CHRISTOPHER —

Christopher Cox has written about politics, business, books, and science for The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Harper’s, Wired, and Slate. In 2020, he was named a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and a visiting scholar at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He was formerly the chief editor of Harper’s Magazine and executive editor of GQ, where he worked on stories that won the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN Literary Award for Journalism, and multiple National Magazine Awards. His book The Deadline Effect is out in paperback now.

• Book: The Deadline Effect: Inside Elite Organizations That Have Mastered the Ticking Clock

• Website: Deadline-Effect.com

— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW —

• Research: “More and Less Effective Updating: The Role of Trajectory Management in Making Sense Again” by Marlys Christianson

• Research: Procrastination of Enjoyable Experiences

• Research: "Procrastination by pigeons: preference for larger, more delayed work requirements." by J.E. Mazur

• Book: Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely

• Book: The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro

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