Just one more week, and this pitch/presentation/project/design would be perfect.

Of course I just asked the client for more time, and the only thing I can think about is to have one more week, heck, even just one more day and I could pull off more references and create more mockups, designs, sketches and finally get the idea that I have in my head and get it perfect.

Sure thing, one more day might get you to that point in your deadline where you theoretically want to be, but let me tell you a secret. It will not.

You know how you will feel one week from now if you got that extra week?

Exactly like how you feel today. Desperate…wishing you would have one more week to polish that little thing here, and change that detail nobody sees over there, and things that add absolutely no value to your presentation.

I would even bet that using the power of Pareto (aka the 80/20 principle), 80% of the genius of your presentation, comes from the last 20% of time left in your schedule. If you would have one more week, then you are basically forfeiting your chance to discover your great ideas.

In order to create a killer presentation, you need critical mass. So, even though you structure your presentation nicely, you need to review and edit your work in order to make it make sense. And that won’t happen until 2 or 3 days before your deadline.

Once you have everything in place, you will realize what is missing to make it look solid, therefore, you will have to rush to get things done, and that is when you start wishing you had just one more day/week/month/year.

Let’s say that your wish came true, and the deadline has been extended one more week. You will lose momentum. You will ‘let go’ that grip of focus that took you weeks of procrastination to master. I don’t believe in that week you will ever really, drastically improve your presentation in such a way that is worth extending the suffering for that one more week.

So embrace the suck, finish that presentation as good as you can and if you are lucky, and confident have it ready a couple of hours before deadline, so you can reward yourself with a little coffee and a clear head.