First things first - I'm at the office, it's late and dark, and I can hardly see the keyboard. So if there are any spelling errors, it's my bad. I'll get a lamp tomorrow.
Second things second - deadlines are happiness. I'm sure you can keep up with the logic explained below. Let's see.
You don't know how excited I was to get to the office today, but let me tell you, I was SUPER excited. And I know exactly why that was: it was because there's only two days left in this month, the last summer month, August. Wednesday is September, fall, already.
So I need to get stuff done, tie up and finish and ship all the remaining summer projects, before fall and the new projects that come with it start.
Projects that don't have to be rushed because they don't have a deadline aren't nearly as fun and exciting.
Also, when you're excited, you're happy.
Ergo: deadlines equal happiness.
Not being idle is happiness. Having a hectic life, even in your free time, is happiness. Catching only short moments of sitting down to look around is happiness.
This isn't some novel, groundbreaking idea, though - even I've known this for years already - but what I noticed only recently is that this paradigm comes more naturally in the fall, because Christmas is coming, and that it's much harder to implement in the spring, because there's no reason to treat the start of summer as a deadline.
But perhaps you can make something up? As in, create your own holiday to be celebrated in June, and rush all spring to meet that... and hope that the weather will not ruin the whole thing?
Taking this further, how many big holidays can you create in a year until it's too much and your psyche won't believe them anymore? Is one a month too much? Maybe one each season?
It might take some trial and error... but the end goal - a life full of deadlines and a sense of urgency and thus, excitement - will definitely be worth it.
RK
