Deadlines and preparing for the worst

Shay Stephens

As a photographer, deadlines are important. They can make the difference between being published and missing the boat entirely. Treat a deadline, not as the last opportunity to enter, but as a metric as to how soon before the deadline you will be making your entry.

Let's face it, things don't always go as planned. You may be relying on FedEx to deliver your package at the last minute. But what if your car breaks down on the way to the FedEx drop off and you miss the pickup?

What if you intend to submit via the internet and you loose power or the internet connection gets broken from a backhoe down the street? If you had waited to the last possible minute to submit, you have no time to find another computer with web access before the deadline expires.

Treat a deadline, not as the last opportunity to enter, but use it to determine how soon before that point you will enter. Take into account how long it would take you to find another computer, or deal with some unknown emergency that would prevent you from getting your entry properly made.

Prepare for the worst, and you will have a much better experience when things do go wrong.

For some real world perspectives on this, you might enjoy these two posts about things going wrong that threatened to derail my own deadlines:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=70837
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=58056

The LPS deadlines are meant to be tricky and painful. Better to learn your lesson about them here in the contest where the pain is small rather than learn it when it really counts with a real customer where the pain is quite large and potentially expensive.

Submit your entries early

jziegler

Shay,

Thanks for the reminder. I feel this is due to my and another post asking for input on shots that missed the deadline. I certainly will not be making that same mistake again, I got caught waiting to have my account activated, thinking that I had more time. You tricked me once. Fortunately not on something important. I expect to have a photo entered early for LPS#15. At least this time I have more than 3 days!

Regards,
Jim

kenlyne

EXCELLENT Post written in such a kind manner--Thank You!!

Tentacion

Sheesh, even IRL...

Miss a Deadline, Loose your Job (especially if an important client)

LPS....Miss a Deadline, loose the possiblity of Winning....

peterst6906

You must have been on some astrological plain when you wrote that post Shay.

Having just arrived home a bit over a week ago, I arived at the office this morning to find out I'm heading out again for 7 weeks, leaving Monday.

Sheesh, doesn't work know that photography is what I really do now. Work is just a sideline....wink

Anyway, that gives me exactly, um, very little time to shoot for LPS #15 and has totally freaked me out for the 3rd semi-final (because assuming it is an open theme, I had already worked out and planned what I was going to do).

Ah well, you are the zen master of perfect post timing, but perhaps you should have written about us having plenty of time and don't sweat it, relax and shoot when you are ready. Maybe that would have changed my work schedule.

Regards,

Peter