Deadlines, please

In order to get anything done, I need deadlines. This has been the case since I was in second grade and I waited midnight the night before my project on volcanoes was due to wake up my mom and announce it. Being the good mommy that she was, she got up with me, made hot chocolate, and we put the project together. But, that night, we set a dangerous precedent. Ever since then, I've been hooked on deadlines.

Thing is, I'm not sure this is a good thing for a writer. Sure, a journalist. Definitely, a grantwriter, the career that I believe honed my penchant for deadlines into a dependency. Because I don't seem to be able to finish anything without them. Is it possible that I cannot be self-motivated?

So, the reason this comes up is that I was literally unable to finish this one story until the very postmark deadline day for the contest I wanted to send it to. I can't help it. I love that rush, the way everything becomes crystal clear when you're down to hours, even minutes. The ruthless prioritization that must accompany this last-minute dash, because you just know you can't dither over things. I am able to focus in a way that is just not possible most of the time.

This is probably unhealthy. I will spend the rest of my life setting up fake deadlines for myself to force me to finish stories. There must be a prescription for this kind of thing.