Allright, I <i>really</i> hate them.
Once again I'm gonna need to cut the corners of a website we're launching because friday is the fuckin deadline and we are nowhere near done even if <i>we</i> tought we will.<p>This time there isn't even a customer involved, i fucked up the estimates in a spectacular way.<p>From this day on I'm going to refuse to do any work I can't finish at least one week before the deadline, both internal projects and more important client projects.
If something is easy and requires 1 day of work we'll tell them the deadline is 8 days, no matter what.
If there's an event in the x day we should have the marketing materials ready at day x-7.
Breaking this new deadline is still a failure, but at least won't cause a lot of problems.<p>I'm in this business (and this life) to have fun, not to die from stress.
If you care about your wellbeing you should do the same.<p>Goodnight.
hey Paolo,<p>There could be two things at work here, either a failure to estimate properly, or a failure to do the work in the allotted time, no matter how much time that is.<p>You should figure out which of the two you're suffering from before you try to remedy the problem.<p>The first you can combat with keeping detailed logs and adjusting your 'fudge' factor over time, the second is only to be dealt with through discipline.<p>Don't die from stress please, it's not worth it.
Yeah! I hate deadlines too !!<p>Learning to say NO to unrealistic customers is the first step. Took me ages to perfect, but now I'm so much less stressed. For me an internal project has no deadline. And for a one week (estimated) project I quote the client a month.