Radical Deadlines

Martin Wisniowski - Nodepond
2 min readApr 30, 2024

A tool to overcome the problem of “how to finish a work”.

Photo by Meghan Hessler on Unsplash

The Problem

Deadlines… Some love it, some hate it. For some this is a nessesary evil. I mostly hate deadlines. But at the same time there is this classical problem of „finishing a work“ – especially artistic work can be an endless rabbit hole.

The Solution

I tried something new: an approach I call „Radical Deadlines“.

How to do it? Set deadlines - also very ridiculous ones — to give the mind the urgency to set the focus on outcome. Deadline can be everywhere!

Example: “At the end of this tea, we will have the decision.”

A deadline will change the mind to focus on this question: „What is really missing to have a viable product?“ instead of the question: „Is the work finished yet?“. The latter can take ages to answer the question.

Working with „radical deadlines“ have the following benefits:

  • Finally get it done / to work
  • You will learn something
  • You will do it, although you hate deadlines (like I do!)

How to use this tool in the right way?

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Martin Wisniowski - Nodepond

Media-Artist, Game-Designer, Software-Dev with background in Urban Planning. Follow my atomic-newsletter about nerdstuff: https://nodepond.beehiiv.com