Deadlines are an element of the majority of work today. Whether this is a deadline of nature (if you leave harvest until after the frost the harvest risks being inedible) or a deadline constructed by work (complete this paperwork/task by this date) or a deadline for an assignment from a form of education (your paper for the assessment is due on this date at this time), deadlines permeate the human experience. And yet, often the deadlines we must meet are one of the greatest sources of stress that we have. Now as many people have probably heard, stress in small doses can enhance performance. Perhaps you notice more things, or you're able to physically complete more than you would have otherwise. Of course, we've also probably heard about this stress being bad for our bodies over long periods of time, messing with our sleep and health.
So what about deadlines, these borders drawn to indicate temporal constraints? Are they necessary to our work? Do they do more harm than good? We are trained to work with deadlines from childhood, and in some ways the world itself is built on deadlines. After all, what is death but not a deadline? It's a morbid thought, but still an argument that can be made. If deadlines are natural, then surely they are good (as many advertisments for products that say "all-natural ingredients" will posit)? I think it's a little more complicated than good and bad, as most things are. Human beings tend to feel better when there are clear boundaries, at least when those boundaries are perceived as fair and reasonable. In fact, there have been studies on how too much choice actually results in more difficulty choosing (e.g. Chernev, 2003). The boundaries on how many choices we have actually helps us make a decision. I think that similarly, working with deadlines can also help us actually complete work. The boundary is useful. To an extent. Deadlines have been shown to help us to meet goals and complete projects (e.g. Katzir et al., 2020), but sometimes those deadlines seem to hinder more than help. Part of this has to do with motivation. Amabile et al. (1976) found that external deadlines can decrease intrinsic motivation, leading to deadlines that "may also prove ultimately dysfunctional and even selfperpetuating". So deadlines can be good and give us a goal to reach, potentially increasing the motivation to actually complete a task. But they can also have a negative affect on intrinsic motivation and simply be pushed further and further off. As seen in the comic at the top of this page (from PhD Comics, which is one of the joys I have found during this PhD), deadlines are often pushed further and further down the line because it is so difficult to make them. So which is it? Are deadlines helpful or harmful? In my PhD experience, it matches the literature, which says the answer is both. Deadlines can be helpful, because they mean I can see the "end" of my PhD. I know that by a certain point I will be expected to have everything written, turned in, and at that point I can actually sleep through the night without a "finals nightmare". But...PhD's are stressful in part because they help prepare future researchers for the inevitable delays and barriers that come up during research. These delays mean that deadlines can actually be a big hindrance because I feel like I can't meet my deadline when I haven't had a chance to complete the thing because I'm trying to conduct research in the middle of a global pandemic (ahem, as an example). So my take on the deadlines is that they are a somewhat necessary evil, and that the systems around us should be taking into account the fact that natural deadlines (returning to the concept of frost) don't work the same way as deadlines imposed in the workplace. Workplace deadlines can still be made, but maybe they don't need to be as "ride or die" because they shouldn't have to be. Let us rest, and set up systems in ways that resting doesn't make us more stressed "because the work is still there when I get back". References: Amabile, T.M., DeJong, W., & Lepper, M.R. (1976). Effects of Externally-Imposed Deadlines on Subsequent Intrinsic Motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34(1), 92 - 98. dx.doi.org.napier.idm.oclc.org/10.1037/0022-3514.34.1.92 Cham, J. (2015). Academic Deadlines. PhD Comics. www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd072915s.gif Chernev, A. (2003). Product Assortment and Individual Decision Processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85(1), 151 - 162. psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-3514.85.1.151 Katzir, M., Emanuel, A., & Liberman, N. (2020). Cognitive performance is enhanced if one knows when the task will end. Cognition 197, 1 - 11. doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104189
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A Second Blog Page?This is the part of the blog specifically about my PhD. It will include updates, musings, and advice. Archives
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