Chick Chat, Group Post

Chick Chat: Are you an early achiever or a deadline sprinter?

There are two distinctly different approaches to getting things done: There are the noble early birds who like a good lead time and believe that if you’re five minutes early, you’re ten minutes late. And then there are the clutch performers who thrive under pressure and love a good deadline, especially if they get to do jazz hands and yell “Ta-Da!” as the clock strikes midnight. Where do the Chicks fall on the spectrum? Let’s find out!

 Ellen Byron

I am SUCH an early bird. I start packing for conventions a month before departure. No joke. I get to the airport at least two hours early — even earlier is better! In fact, I may be at the airport as you read this. Given the partial shutdown, my plan was to arrive four hours early for a flight to Tucson for the Tucson Festival of Books. When someone says, “Let’s meet at five,” I am there at five, if not earlier, and begin to tap my foot if they haven’t shown up by 5:01.

You think I’m bad? Get a load of my mother on this issue. My father once called me from JFK to complain that they’d arrived for a flight EIGHT HOURS EARLY. The airline employees weren’t even on deck yet. Our daughter Eliza was with Mom when her friend Lowen, who was picking them up for dinner at 6 p.m., was not there by 6:04. Mom told Eliza she had to call 911 because she was convinced something happened to her friend. Talk about learned behavior!

Jennifer Chow

OK, so I’m a last-minute person for punctuality. In our household, one of my kids named it “Chow time,” which means you need to tack on another fifteen minutes on top of the expected arrival hour. And this individual also sneakily gives us the wrong time (say, half an hour earlier), so our family doesn’t show up un-fashionably late. In regard to writing, though, I’m an early bird. I like to set internal deadlines earlier than scheduled due dates—I want to make sure I don’t mess up the publication schedule!  

Marla Cooper

It started back in college when I would cram for my exams at the last minute. Oh the all-nighters I would pull! When I worked in advertising, everything was very fast-paced and deadline-driven, so that just reinforced my habits. I feel like I should put in a solid defense of how it’s a byproduct of piling my plate too high at the buffet of life, but who am I kidding? I’m consistently running in the door at the last minute saying, “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” I feel like getting to the airport an hour before departure is perfectly reasonable, and I’m much more likely to make it 45 minutes than I am to get there two hours ahead of time. Occasionally, I vow to do better, but secretly? I think I like the adrenaline thrill of the eleventh-hour victory. 

Lisa Q. Mathews

Well, guess who’s the last Chick to post her answer to this chat?I have been Last Minute Lisa since high school. I do try hard not to be inconsiderate of others, and I am very careful not to be late to appointments or events. Marla and I would have been great college roommates, burning the midnight oil together. My actual roommate, bless her, used to type my papers for $1/page. I literally passed my handwritten pages to her as I finished them. (I had to learn to type quickly and perfectly after graduation to get a job in publishing, ha.) But I’m never really procrastinating–I continually run through tasks and write things in my head until zero hour. I complete one draft of a ms., and I rarely go back. Adrenaline forces me into laser focus, I guess, and it’s nearly impossible for me to summon otherwise. Believe me, I have tried to change my process. But last year, I became completely blocked on a project, and missed a major deadline. I was devastated. Now I check my to-do lists all day long and listen to Nancy Meyer movie playlists (You’ve Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, The Holiday, etc.) to help trick myself to get things done sooner. (Thanks, Katie Couric, for that tip!)

Cynthia Kuhn

While I make a great effort to go places early, I somehow never seem to arrive early. Doesn’t seem to be how time should work and yet that’s how it is. And I do often find myself sprinting toward deadlines, but it’s because I’m always juggling too much to get everything done. The old not-enough-hours-in-the-day situation is real!

Vickie Fee

I spent most of my working life as a newspaper reporter. This means I always had to meet deadlines. But, it also means I often worked up until deadline to get the story. That’s still pretty much my schedule. As a writer, I write frantically until close to the last minute, then I rewrite until the VERY last minute to make it work and SOUND better. I still like to be the one tweaking until the last minute, because as an author I’m still the one putting my name on the final product.

Leslie Karst

I am such a planner/organizer that I’ve never pulled an all-nighter in my entire life–I’ve never had to. And I tend to turn in my manuscripts to my publisher at least a few weeks early. I was the high school student who would come home from school, immediately do all my homework for the next day, and then spend the rest of the evening/night goofing off. Can you say LISTS? That’s my middle name.

Patricia Sargeant

I’m an early achiever. I fully subscribe to the philosophy, “To be five minutes early is to be 10 minutes late.” I intensely dislike to keep people waiting. First, it makes me feel rude. I also feel it puts me at a disadvantage. Like Ellen, my siblings and I get that from our mother. Oh, my goodness. Do. Not. Keep. Our. Mother. Waiting. We felt the vibrations of her tension pulsing around her as each minute ticked by. My husband doesn’t share my philosophy. For him, “To be five minutes early is to be wasting five minutes.” Before we travel together, we have a summit to negotiate departure times.

 

Readers: what about you? Are you Team Early Bird or Team Just-in-the-Nick-of-Time?

34 thoughts on “Chick Chat: Are you an early achiever or a deadline sprinter?”

  1. I am definitely Team Early.

    I am so like Ellen when it comes to being early for anything.
    Leslie, I did the same thing in HS, immediately did my homework so the rest of the day was mine to do as I please. And yes, I do make lists.

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  2. I’m both.

    I always attempt to arrive early (this does not always work: I once left 3 hours early to get to the airport and because of an accident in the Ft. Pitt Tunnel, I arrived at my flight just as they were closing the door). My husband and I joke that it’s time for us to leave so we can sit around waiting when we get there. He was in the Army for 20 years and my dad was Army, so definitely a “early is on time, on time is late” person here.

    However, I work on deadlines All. The. Time. Both writing and my day job. So I know the “work every last minute” rush, too – although I prefer to pace myself because I know something will happen at the last minute and if I’ve planned correctly, I’ll have some buffer time.

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    2. Liz, buffer time is so important. I like to schedule extra time in case of, for example, the unfortunate and unforeseen traffic accident or trouble finding a spot at the airport parking lot. If everything goes smoothly – ha; when does that ever happen? – I always carry a book with me to keep me entertained while I’m waiting.

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      1. I was so proud of myself for leaving with plenty of time to get to the airport after Left Coast Crime, but I did not account for the tram from the rental car drop-off taking 20 extra minutes! So far I have never missed a flight (knock on wood) but I think I do need to improve in this department.

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    3. Liz, I love that saying! It’s my new response. Anytime anyone gives me grief about being too early I’ll say, this is what the army says. My husband has to respect that because his dad was a World War II vet!

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  3. These days I am predominately Team Early, but have been that last minute Lucy as well. College papers were often finished in the wee hours of the morning on the due date, but these days I find it stressful to know I might keep someone waiting, well most people anyway! That said, I have to run or I will be late! Hope you all have a great weekend. I know I will, Tucson Book Festival is on the agenda!

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    3. I have a confession to make: I’ve never been to a book festival. Texas Book Festival is literally walking distance from my house, but last year I had to attend a funeral and didn’t get to go. This year will be my first!

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      1. My first was the Bay Area Book Festival last year when I got to be on a panel. It was super fun, but I have to admit that the best part was the green room–they had the BEST FOOD ever! Bagels with lox and cream cheese in the morning and then a full-on taco bar midday! I wanted the spend the whole day in there.

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      2. Tucson is only 75 miles south and this will be my first year attending. Always some conflict in the past. Have fun when you go!

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  4. So funny…I just got a mass email from my college class president because a lot of people are trying to book hotels for our reunion in June 2027. (Granted, it’s a small town.) Rates are listed as “unavailable” everywhere b/c the hotels haven’t figured out what their rates will be that far off, ha, and one manager just sent her a letter to explain.

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  5. i am also mostly Team Early.

    Like Ellen, I arrive at the airport hours before departure. Lots of practice from so many solo work trips and vacations. And it was drilled into me from childhood by my dad that it was disrespectful to be late.

    But unlike Ellen, I don’t start packing for a trip until the day before departure. I am a carry-on only traveler & my packing list is limited by what I can put in one small suitcase.

    Oddly, I was LATE at going to panels or meeting friends at this year’s Left Coast Crime. I blame the long wait for elevators at the Hyatt Regency!

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  6. i am also mostly Team Early.

    Like Ellen, I arrive at the airport hours before departure. Lots of practice from so many solo work trips and vacations. And it was drilled into me from childhood by my dad that it was disrespectful to be late.

    But unlike Ellen, I don’t start packing for a trip until the day before departure. I am a carry-on only traveler & my packing list is limited by what I can put in one small suitcase.

    Oddly, I was LATE at going to panels or meeting friends at this year’s Left Coast Crime. I blame the long wait for elevators at the Hyatt Regency!

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  7. I strive really hard to be early for certain things. At work, I want to make sure others have time to do their part, so I try to be early. However, my blog? That can turn very last minute. And I’m often late to things because I’m trying to do this or that before I leave, and suddenly, I’m late.

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