Hey! this is Overpass Insights my name is Eric and I make apps now my fellow developers
stop complaining about deadlines
alright so it's been a while since I've done a video at least a couple of weeks and one of
the reasons is that last week I came down with covid right after two and a half years I found
my number finally came up I mean hundreds of thousands millions of people have had it
you may have had it right and I finally got it last week so my energy levels were just nowhere like
I had difficulty working I felt behind on a lot of stuff it was just you know it just kind of sucked
and I'm still testing positive so I'm still isolating I'm still stuck in this flat but
I'm stuck in this apartment for those of you guys who are not in England and you know but I'm
feeling a lot better my energy levels are back up last week mostly what I did was sleep I was like
isolating because so I kept thinking maybe should do a video and then my next thought was
so anyway it feels really good to get the energy levels back
anyway so last week I was looking through LinkedIn I was you know scrolling through LinkedIn post
which is not something I normally do it is my least favorite social network right it seems like
a lot of people like it's always saying linkedin always seems very spammy to me like you know
people trying to sell to each other and all this kind of stuff but it is what it is it's a useful
tool we use a lot for prospecting checking up on clients that kind of stuff and it's like you know
kind of one of those things you have to do anyway I saw this post on there by developer who said
I hate to think of all the software projects that have been ruined by deadlines and it was like a
it was kind of like a it was an interesting post that I thought about it
and I thought this is a junior developer this is someone new to the game this is someone who's
you know who still thinks that deadlines are a bad thing right because by the way as software
developers as a software developer myself I hate deadlines, deadlines suck especially when you have
a project where you you're giving a quote or you know ideally the deadline is based on the
estimates that you're given you know if you've ever had a manager that says like who thinks
they're being all bravado by saying how long it's going to take you so I don't know take me
you know a week and I go you got three days right you're like well you know it doesn't work that way
despite what you've seen in the movies you don't just go in there and go you've got two hours get
going right so as a developer a lot of times if if you get a deadline that is contrary to
what your estimates are you have to push back it's just one of those things you have to make
sure that everybody knows that you know why your estimate is what it is but anyway but other times
you'll give an estimate because you have to give some sort of estimate even though you're not
quite sure like there's a there might be an issue that's still an unknown like if it's a bug fix for
example or if it's something where technologically you're not quite sure how it's going to work or
you know there's some APIs you still need to investigate there's all kinds of things that
you might not be able to give an estimate as good as you can but then you do
and then once that estimate is there once that deadline is there
then the stress sets in then you got to get everything done you got to you know make sure
everything is done right and if you start to run out of time you might you'd be like okay
ideally, I would love to do X, Y and Z but really what we need to do is get we just need to get
this out and going so we'll just do you know X and Y but we'll leave Z off or whatever usually
the things I get sacrifice are like unit tests and proper testing and stuff like that
but sometimes you know well testing has to happen right you don't put thing out of something out
there without testing but you know and testing is one of those things that will grow it
will expand and contract based on the time you give it right it's Parkinson's Law Parkinson's
Law says work expands or retracts based on the time you give it which is one of the reasons why
we need deadlines right the guy who said this I think of all the projects that
that have suffered because of deadlines I think of all the software projects that have never
been completed because there was no deadlines I mean personally, I've had so many projects
over the years which I started on my own applications where I didn't give myself a deadline
and just you know other things came up or you know another idea comes up or another feature
idea or just you know you get that bit where you don't have something set in stone where you have
to get something out there and it doesn't this is one of the big problems I have with client work
is that we'll have something where they'll have a tight deadline so we have an event so if we
have an event like a trade show or something like that we're doing that for trade show those apps
are so stressful but they're so ideal because you know that they're going to get finished you know
that it's not going to be with a client testing forever you know they have a deadline you have a
deadline it's not just a deadline imposed on you or deadline impose on them it's a hardcore
deadline and other times you'll have somebody with a client will say oh we need it by this date
and then when you give it to them they say oh we also want this and this and you're going well
that first of all that wasn't in the specification and secondly, there's no way we could do that with
your deadline and it's like oh we can push back the deadline and then it becomes this thing where
you know when you're actually charging for that work you need to get paid for it so you need that
deadline set in stone one of my favorite ted talks which I talked about which I talk about all the
time is I can't remember his name it's called Confessions of a Master Procrastinator and I'll
put a link to it in the description because if you haven't seen it it's really really good and
then he talks about the mind of a procrastinator and in some ways where we're all procrastinators
and he talks about all you know when he talks about getting over procrastination
and actually delivering something he talks about all the people who have contacted them
in real life with shame in their voice and everything or they're just they're so disappointed
themselves because they didn't complete something because they never gave themselves a deadline
we all have these things where we're what we want to do one day I want to write a book I want to do
videos I want to do I want to release this app I want to do whatever and with no deadline in
place it becomes that thing that's always on the horizon always that thing that you're going to do
for me, it's travel like I'm like I started to realize that my excuses for not traveling
are getting they're starting to dwindle and I'm I'm kind of still holding on to them like oh
well I'll wait until this I'll wait till the wait till cove is completely over I'll wait
till this whatever and then there's this thing where it's like dude I got to put a deadline in
place i'm getting older you know we got to do this kind of stuff so anyway the point of this
video is that there's deadlines are a fact of life in fact if you don't have a deadline
you know it's a lot less stressful if you don't have a deadline on the software project but
it is like the odds of you actually getting it done are you know actually much higher if you
have one and the hard thing is when you set it either when you set a deadline that is
fungible that is changeable like your client sets one uh or that you set one for yourself
and you're like oh well instead of releasing it this week I'll release it two weeks from now or
literally, you know next month's just as good as this month whatever then that gets dangerous too
right it's the hard bit is when you set your own deadlines and you and you don't stick to them
anyway I just thought I'd you know share my thoughts on that I hope you guys are having
a great week I hope you guys are healthy you know stay away from this virus if you haven't
caught it yet and that is an important day I'll talk to you guys again next time