I have up at BeTheStory.com a blog conversation with Kevin Cummings, humorist and author of the new book Happily Domesticated. We talk about his history as a writer, his writing process, and (of course) his book. He does most of the talking.

One of the things that I admire about him is that he keeps to a regular deadline, and has been successfully doing so with his blogcast for almost 3 years. I’ve never been able to keep to regular deadlines for any length of time. For me, deadlines go something like this:

1. There's always more stuff to do than you have time to do it in.
2. "Well, I'll do the best I can."
3. Crash. Burn.

So for me, the issue is prioritization and effectiveness. Schedule only the most important things, in small chunks, in order to get them done by the deadline. And I actually did that successfully during my last “normal” job, and then carried some of those practices into my consulting work, and even for limited stints in my own work. For example, that’s how I completed the first Abe’s Turn book, by publishing regular episodes.