Managing deadlines

Student writers are learning to become professionals. Professional writers know the importance of deadlines. Student writers should treat deadlines with the same respect. When you are given an assignment, meeting the deadline with a good piece is more important than perfecting a piece - and handing it in late. It is also better for you: when you have finished one assignment, you can move on to the next step in your studies and lratning. (You'll be in a better position to hand in the next one on time, too, if you have not got the last one still hanging over you.)

There is a balance to be found between input and reward. Write your assignment well, and then move on. It is a waste of time to continue obsessively polishing your writing. Make it good. Do not aim to make it perfect. It has been said, and well said, that the perfect is the enemy of the good. The good work that you do should be good. If so, aiming at pefection will slow you doen. Student writers must learn to control their time management.

This is good training for professional life. Professional authors must meet publishers' deadlines, or they will lose their contracts. Professional lawyes must provide their clients with advice in good time. Acadmics must prepare their classes before the classes happen - and so on.