I have my own style of time management: wait til the pressure is really on, then sweat and work frantically to meet a deadline. I love it, I thrive on it. I advise others against this yet I cannot help myself.
It’s probably not the method recommended by experts, psychologists, or those people who turn up on TV from time to time telling us how to balance our lives – but it has worked for me for many years.
From cramming for school exams, to meeting deadlines at my first job, to getting more relaxed and cruising by until a day or two of intense work to meet a presentation deadline at my next job – right through to now, when I will potter around the house, a silent tick-tock in my head until a deadline really looms. Then it’s all go.
It’s the same with Christmas – all the presents are bought in the week leading up to it; birthdays, mine and other people’s: parties and presents will be planned in the hours leading up to the big day; and even petrol: I always, always wait until the red light is on before bothering to fill up.
I know people who are horrified at this lax attitude, who have things planned weeks in advance, stick rigidly to schedules and panic if they fall even slightly behind.
Who is to say what is better? I don’t know, but I do know that after a recent bout of conscience, I decided to organise my life and work ahead of myself. It was brought on by a TV talking head who said procrastination cost businesses, working under pressure undercut quality of output, and a range of other blah-de-blah things I can’t quite remember, but which sounded suitably scary at the time.
So I drew up a timetable, and decided to work in advance of myself.
Big mistake. Cue hours spent at my desk, gazing into space, feeling vaguely guilty. The result was that not only did my work STILL get done at the last minute, the time I spent sitting at my desk staring into space took away from time with my family, getting caught up on household tasks and correspondence, and drumming up new business.
Verdict? Whatever gets you through the day – we all have methods to our madness, and who are these “experts” to tell us otherwise anyway?
Leah Gibbs is the Founder and Business Manager of Lifestyle Careers.
Lifestyle Careers is an online recruitment job board. Our niche and specific focus is the advertising of flexible employment and work at home positions. It is designed for professionals wanting to balance their work and personal life.
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You know Leah, one of the reasons I love working from home is that my time management is largely resolved. I should say that I don’t have children at home so, one big time demand out of the way already!
But, I do find that I am able to be far more task oriented because I have so few distractions and unnecessary time traps e.g. needing to step into a two hour meeting that actually has nothing to do with my role but as I work ‘on the floor’, people felt I should be included. 
But I do also know what you mean about thriving on a tight schedule. My brain tends to be on fire in the race to meet an urgent request etc. Perhaps it’s because at those moments all your skill needs to come together to make the situation work!
I am also afflicted with procrastination, and I thrive on a deadline (many a uni assignment has been completed in the final hours before its deadline, but with good results), but I find that it is only with things I really hate doing, such as studying. I tend to be on top of things in my work as a VA, but I guess it is because I really enjoy it, and I have clients who are expecting things to moving along pretty quickly, so the deadlines are always popping up. I don’t have time to procrastinate about them.
Tim Ferris advocates insane deadlines to invoke maximum productivity in his excellent book “The Four Hour Work Week”. Worth a read if you haven’t been through it!