Welcome to the Carnival...

Image via Sherry Conley

Step right this way... Each month a group of jewelry artists use their blogs to get together online and answer the same question - each in their own way. The topic this month is:

Deadlines - How do you feel about them? Are they a necessary evil or something you left behind in school?

Ha! Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a putter offer, a delayer, a master of procrastination. It's not that I actively admire Scarlet and Whimpy, but really... Why on earth should I do something now that I can just as easily do next Tuesday? In fact I started to write this blog and then felt the need to check my e-mail. Procrastinator! J'accuse!

(Just in case you'd like a little distraction in the middle of my post)

Deadlines are the bane of my existence. Do they help? If the event is important enough to me they do. If I'm ambivalent, a deadline is pretty much a moot point. 

I try making to do lists. On paper. I like the action of crossing things out. I try making them on the computer. Tonya Davidson told me about iCal. Never knew it existed and it's been right there in my Mac's hard drive all the time. I like that too. I can enter events for the whole day, in 15 minute increments. Then I print it out 'cos, well, I like physically crossing things out. ;-)

Do *they* help? Sometimes. The things I have to do on a daily basis seem to get done. Mostly. But things I put on a long term list like submissions, taxes, paying my car registration, making jewelry for the expensive show I signed on to do in November... those tasks get buried in the morass that is my brain.

I've had a cute little saying about myself that I've used since college days. "My Hippo is Off Campus". Meaning that I've forgotten something. The hippocampus is one of the areas of the brain that stores memory. And of course the older I get, the further that damn Hippo wanders.

So, back to deadlines. Yes. I need them. I need the stress of *having* to get something handled. But I also need the added stress of *right now!* for the deadline to be effective. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I could take action in a timely manner. How much more efficient would I be? How much more money could I make? How much more fame could I garner? How much more happiness could I feel? But then my evil twin Scarlet rears her seductive head and says to me... " Oh, too much to do. Let's think about that tomorrow"

Now why don't you wander over to the other carney' s blogs to see what puts them off? Now. Do it now. Or later....

Angela Crispin

Lorrene Davis

Tamra Gentry

Elaine Luther

Tonya Davidson