Monday Challenge: Running Out Of Time

I chose this picture entirely because it weirds me the fuck out. Enjoy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After blowing off my entire to-do and chore list yesterday to go for a long run and then hike to some awesome waterfalls with friends, I started today under the gun.

And now here I am, just past noon, working on the second-to-last* item on my list. Apparently the way to get me to do something is to not give me enough time to do it in.

I’ve heard this myth before: the I-work-better-under-stress myth. Usually in school, coming from the mouth of someone staying up until 4 am to finish a research paper.** It’s a lie, of course—I am most definitely not working better right now—but it can be a useful one. One that gets you out of someday and into now.

Now, if people said that they worked better under a deadline, that I could get behind. Because nothing is more motivating than the knowledge of a clock ticking down somewhere. The clock means Consequences, which are far harder to ignore than a shrug of disappointment.

So the Monday Challenge, fellow toilers of keys and brain, is this: write me a deadline. Somewhere, there is a timer, and it will run out. What happens when it does? Doom?*** Teeth cleaning? Velociraptor Jesus descends from the sky on a hoverboard to take us away? Or something worse?

Write me tension, write me time, write me the nail-biting, heart-pounding, stomach-clenching realization that time is running the fuck out. And then what happens when it does.

I’m off to finish my to-do list.

*Note that placement on the list is more indicative of time constraints than importance. There were like eight fucking things I had to get done before eleven A.M or forget about entirely.
**I also stayed up late to finish papers at the last minute, but my excuse was more like, “What? I was busy drinking. Get off my back or get me more cigarettes.”
***Always my first choice.