Speed of Delivery - Part 3

I used to hate deadlines. In my head, they felt ambiguous and hollow. Dates on a calendar that everyone nodded at, but nobody truly believed in.

That shifted when I realised what deadlines actually do. They set expectations for customers, but the deeper value is internal. 

A deadline is a motivator that turns ideas into action. 

It creates a finish line, and once a finish line exists, energy changes. Decisions get easier. Trade offs become visible. 

The work stops being an endless open loop and becomes something you can shape and complete.

The turning point for me was noticing a familiar feeling. The excitement of a trip to France is not really about France. It is about the clarity of a plan. Dates booked, bags imagined, routes loosely sketched. 

There is anticipation now. When I started setting deadlines to produce videos, I felt the same thing. The work became a journey with a departure time. Suddenly I could picture it, prepare for it, and look forward to it.

Now I am sitting here using my own software platform to schedule content. 

Seeing that vision of what the week looks like has changed how I feel about building.

The structure has brought the joy back, because we're no longer staring into an infinite backlog. We're moving through a defined route with visible momentum.

And now I cannot wait to set more deadlines. Not because I want pressure for its own sake, but because I know what it leads to. It creates accountability. It also builds confidence, because every time the team and I meet one, we collect evidence that we can do it again.

Speed of delivery, I have learned, is not only about moving faster. It is about making progress feel real. Deadlines are how I turn excitement into output, and output into a habit I can rely on.