Deadlines are My Friends

This afternoon, the "Gilligan's Island" theme got stuck in my head.

I did what I had to do.

I put a radio on my head, started listening to a classical music station, and got to work on blogs.

All of which may seem to have nothing to do with deadlines.

This blog, and two others, are part of my collection of online income-generators. So far, the blogs have earned exactly nothing, gross or net. But it's early days yet. Not that I expect to ever rely solely on blogs for income. I've read claims about people making thousands of dollars a month with these things, but a quick check shows a catch. The presumably high-income blogs are also high-traffic blogs. And have an extremely tight focus.

Speaking of focus, I've lost mine. Ah, right! Deadlines.

I don't like deadlines. In fact, I barely tolerate them.

But they're important. For a closet perfectionist like me, they're vital.

Without a deadline, I'm capable of letting a project lag, lapse, tarry, and tumble into that oblivion shared by so many promising ideas.

These blogs, for instance, must be updated no more than once a week.

I know: that's an insanely long time between entries in the fidgety online world.

In fact, I update my blogs much more frequently than that. But, it's possible that a week will come, when some fragment of fact or opinion associated with a blog hasn't made its way to my mind's front desk in time. If that happens, I'll take drastic steps and actually work at scraping some write-worthy bit from the week's headlines, or my experiences.

It was a deadline that got my Minnesota for Web-Wise Travelers site launched while the Minnesota tourist season was still on. And, it will be a deadline that will keep my current project from becoming an uncomfortable memory.

Deadlines? I may never like them, but I've learned to appreciate them.