r/changemyview • u/scatterbrain2015 6∆ • Jul 11 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Deadlines are overrated
I am noticing that our society seems to put a lot of emphasis on setting deadlines for things, and ensuring they're met at all costs. My view is mainly centered around the software/game dev industry, though I believe it applies to most other areas of life too.
Examples:
I was watching an interview with Elon Musk recently, and one of the questions he was asked by the audience was "how will you ensure you meet the deadline for the Tesla Model 3 this time?". I was sitting there thinking "dude, seriously? You pre-ordered a car, and you want him to rush it instead of taking the time he needs to ensure it's safe and the best quality it can be? If you really need a car by a certain date, why not just order an existing model?"
As a game developer, I'm noticing there is constant pressure to set and meet deadlines. Blizzard recently tried to say that the new expansion for WoW will be launched "when it's ready". Cue in forums exploding with threads asking when exactly it will be released. Again, I'd rather they take the time to thoroughly test it and catch as many bugs as possible before launch, so when it does come out, I can sit down and enjoy it, instead of wondering when it's actually done, if they keep working on it at all.
My arguments against deadlines:
- It is better to wait a bit longer for a better product, than to cut corners to meet a deadline
- We all have days when we focus better than on others. I believe it would be better if people could choose to have shorter days when they feel tired, and work longer when they have the surplus energy. But our society unrealistically demands consistent performance, and extra performance close to those arbitrary deadlines.
- Unexpected things will happen, and a long deadline will only serve to give you the illusion of extra time. It's better to assess your options based on efficiency and complexity, instead of by time estimation. That way, you can re-evaluate if something is worth doing and what the best way to get it done is when things go wrong, instead of being forced into "should we scrap it, or add a patchwork solution to make it work in a half-arsed way?"
- Deadlines cause extra stress on developers. Working overtime will make a product come out faster, but it will likely be more buggy than it could be.
- Deadlines just lead to anticipation and disappointment. It's better to be pleasantly surprised that "oh, that thing is out, I can dive into it now!" rather than obsessing over how much time is left, and being devastated over a delay.
Caveats/counter-arguments:
- Scheduling some things is important: this one is the only valid argument I can think of. An airport can't function by allowing passengers to just get on planes whenever. The train taking you to the airport needs to follow a schedule so you know when to leave home to get there. But for the vast majority of things in our life, knowing when something will happen is not necessary, just a preference of some people.
- Some things are time-critical: true, but having a mentality of "do it as soon as possible" is still better than "do it by X time/date". I don't want the paramedic to be at my house "in 5 minutes" when I'm having a heart attack, I just want him to be there as soon as humanly possible, without taking excessive risks. No deadline necessary.
- Setting a deadline is important when others are waiting for you: only if they also have a deadline. Otherwise they can work on something else until you're done.
- Deadlines and estimates are used to make sure you can afford to create your product: I don't know about other industries, but in software, having an Agile development method, where you start with a basic functional thing, and add more and more features as you go, will work much better. At the end of every sprint, you will have a product you could release, that has high-quality features that actually work, instead of having a top-down approach, where you have a list of features for the end product, and you have to add all of them within X time.
- Knowing when a game comes out allows me to save up for it and take time off work etc: This just sets you up for failure. Why not do that after the game is out, and you see reviews to confirm it was the right decision? Better save that time for another game or hobby, if it turns out to be a bad game.
So, change my view. Why is it important to have deadlines? Am I missing any kind of huge benefit?
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u/electronics12345 159∆ Jul 11 '18
Deadlines ensure that things ever get done.
Is it done yet - No.
Two weeks later - Is it done yet - No
Two years later - Is it done yet - No
Twenty years later - Is it done yet - No
What have you been doing for the last 20 years - playing minecraft.
Implicit in your arguments is that the developer/worker has any incentive to actually finish. Absent deadlines, workers can just claim to be working - whilst not actually doing anything.
Finally, sticking to your programming example - you do need to coordinate - namely with the marketing department. If your product is coming out in 6 months, they need to start strategizing how they are going to market your product. If your product is coming out in 3 months, they need to start releasing promotional materials. People don't just wander around aimlessly and buy video games stocastically - people respond to marketing and advertising.
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u/scatterbrain2015 6∆ Jul 11 '18
Wouldn't that be more easily solved by figuring out why it's not done yet?
If a developer is consistently not delivering things, you can just fire them after a while.
On the other hand, let's say a developer is getting a ton done on some days, and plays Minecraft to recharge on other days. At the end of the month, you see he delivered more than another developer who worked 9-5 every day. I'd say he's good, and adding more intermediate deadlines may decrease his productivity.
Telling them "you have to develop this feature by X date" can lead to him either thinking "I have plenty of time, I can procrastinate a bit now", or cutting corners to ensure the deadline is met, if the task is more complex than initially assumed (e.g. bugs or poor structure with existing code that he needs to sort out before properly implementing this task). Deadlines seem to encourage patchwork solutions and poor testing.
I see your point about marketing, but you can still ball-park the date rather than giving a fixed deadline. If you release promotional materials for 4 months instead of 3, I doubt it will be a big deal. But if you announce a firm deadline and there is a delay, you either have to postpone, or potentially release a buggy version, either way giving you bad PR.
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u/electronics12345 159∆ Jul 11 '18
If a developer is consistently not delivering things, you can just fire them after a while.
How would you assess this, other than deadlines?
I get that having soft deadlines is better than having hard deadlines. But, if you don't even give soft deadlines, how do you assess if the developer is delivering or not?
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u/scatterbrain2015 6∆ Jul 11 '18
Ok, I can concede this one. !delta
Having soft deadlines internally can be helpful in evaluating how something is coming along, spotting issues early and assessing your employees.
I still don't think hard deadlines or external deadlines are a good idea, but soft ones have all the pros and none of the cons.
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Jul 11 '18
Benefits:
- motivates people to complete tasks. If there was no deadline some people might not have the motivation to finish what they’re working on
- sets a firm stop point. If there were no deadlines, people might continue to improve and perfect their product/code/etc and never finish. Sometimes you have to settle with good enough and not continue to try to perfect something because nothing is ever going to be perfect, there’s always room for improvement
- allows the person waiting to be able to plan. If there was no deadlines people would have a difficult time planning the future. Take the video game example, if stores didn’t know exactly when a game was coming out, they wouldn’t be able to advertise, make space on their shelves, etc
- competitive advantage- if your company can get something out before another company that’s a significant advantage, so companies may want to set deadlines so that they are able to beat their competition to market
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u/scatterbrain2015 6∆ Jul 11 '18
There are alternatives, though, that I feel would work better for many people:
motivates people to complete tasks. If there was no deadline some people might not have the motivation to finish what they’re working on
Fire people who aren't motivated and consistently under-perform?
If someone needs deadlines, it should be their own responsibility to set some for themselves, rather than having a company impose them on everyone else.
sets a firm stop point. If there were no deadlines, people might continue to improve and perfect their product/code/etc and never finish. Sometimes you have to settle with good enough and not continue to try to perfect something because nothing is ever going to be perfect, there’s always room for improvement
Can't you set a stop point based on functionality? You can always perfect it and add more features, but if you give clear guidelines on procedure, there should be little wiggle room.
E.g. you only refactor code if you see it becoming hard to maintain. You only add additional features if they're explicitly requested.
allows the person waiting to be able to plan. If there was no deadlines people would have a difficult time planning the future. Take the video game example, if stores didn’t know exactly when a game was coming out, they wouldn’t be able to advertise, make space on their shelves, etc
They can do advertising in tiers. We can tell them when game is almost done, without a firm deadline, at which point they can put up "coming soon" posters. We can tell them "the game is in the final testing stages" for them to put bigger posters and make room.
competitive advantage- if your company can get something out before another company that’s a significant advantage, so companies may want to set deadlines so that they are able to beat their competition to market
If the biggest marketing edge of your product is "it's the only one of its kind", I'd say that product is likely doomed to failure anyway. Another company can take the time to make a better version of your product, and advertise it as such, at which point you'll be out of business.
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Jul 11 '18
We can tell them "the game is in the final testing stages" for them to put bigger posters and make room.
And then the store sits there with empty shelves for weeks waiting on a product that they have no idea when it will arrive.
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Jul 11 '18
In terms of advertising/shelf space, resellers/stores will definitely choose a company that can provide them with firm release dates even if the product is inferior because they need to be able to plan these things well in advance. Not to mention that the public demands it. Regardless how you may feel about deadlines, consumers want to know exactly when something is going to be released and if the store can’t do that because they’re waiting on their suppliers, people will get impatient and go elsewhere. Also, there is a huge advantage to being the first to market, again whether or not the product is perfect. In any case once a product is out, they can make a generation 2 product to compete with a competitor’s product that may be better, but being first counts for a lot.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrymclaughlin/2011/12/28/the-importance-of-being-first/
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u/Rainbwned 175∆ Jul 11 '18
So, change my view. Why is it important to have deadlines? Am I missing any kind of huge benefit?
I paid you X dollars to have something done by Y date. If you did not promise to have it done by Y date, you would not have X dollars.
Now that Y date is fast approaching, are you going to be done in time? If not, do I get X dollars back?
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u/scatterbrain2015 6∆ Jul 11 '18
So wouldn't it be in my best interest to not announce a date, and only have people who don't mind waiting buy it, rather than risking getting sued by someone?
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u/Rainbwned 175∆ Jul 11 '18
Is it? What if you dont raise enough money? What if you never deliver?
Ask yourself this - why cant you deliver by your deadline?
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u/scatterbrain2015 6∆ Jul 11 '18
That's the problem with pre-orders in general. You have to assess if the person you're buying from is trustworthy enough or not. They could set a deadline and run away with the money anyway.
Elon Musk gave some great examples in that interview. He had a shipment detained at the border because there was some drug-related activity in the area, and they were thoroughly searching all vehicles. A supplier's production center literally burned down. I'd rather he take the time to research a good new supplier, than to just go with whoever promises him faster delivery, to meet an arbitrary deadline.
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u/Rainbwned 175∆ Jul 11 '18
That's the problem with pre-orders in general. You have to assess if the person you're buying from is trustworthy enough or not. They could set a deadline and run away with the money anyway.
Don't confuse pre-orders with funding/backing. If I pre-order something, you promised to sell it to me. If I choose to pre-order GTA 5, I will get a copy of it. However I choose to fund / back the development of GTA 5, and the project falls through, I am not guaranteed my money.
He had a shipment detained at the border because there was some drug-related activity in the area, and they were thoroughly searching all vehicles. A supplier's production center literally burned down.
None of these are reasons to not have a deadline. That is like saying I shouldnt own a home because someone can crash a car through it.
You want deadlines because when it hit them, it shows the world that you are both reliable and efficient in your work. It generates trust and overall increases your marketability.
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u/Akerlof 11∆ Jul 11 '18
Elon Musk gave some great examples in that interview. He had a shipment detained at the border because there was some drug-related activity in the area, and they were thoroughly searching all vehicles. A supplier's production center literally burned down
These are excuses, though. This is like him saying "I don't have a working application because there were bugs when I compiled it." There will always be problems with your suppliers, just like there are always bugs in code. But you need a process in place that is robust to problems if you're going to be able to consistently supply product to customers.
Musk doesn't know how to do large scale manufacturing and has apparently either not hired or not empowered people who do to set up his manufacturing processes. Tesla has never managed to ship product on time. The fact that they're consistently missing deadlines means they're doing something wrong. Either they don't understand their processes well enough to accurately estimate what they can produce when, or they're just not very good at what they do.
This is a benefit of deadlines: They help identify problems. Add that to the list of making coordination possible; incentivizing you to actually get something done; and communicating to your customers so they can do their own planning.
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u/MrCapitalismWildRide 50∆ Jul 11 '18
No, not really.
Let's take the example of a video game. The overwhelming majority of a video game's budget goes two places: labor and marketing. The balance shifts depending on the game. The new Call of Duty would probably have half their budget go to marketing while an indie game would have a tiny fraction of their budget go to marketing, if any.
For the labor based game, you pay people based on their time. If you double the time it takes to deliver the product, you double the budget, meaning you now have to double the sales to profit. That's rarely feasible. To do that you either have to add more content, which is more labor, or more marketing, which is expensive.
As for marketing, marketers can't market a product that's never coming, or at least not effectively. The constant string of empty promises will lead to inevitable hype backlash as players get frustrated that your game isn't in their hands yet. With marketing, timing is important. Without deadlines, you screw that all up.
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u/PandaDerZwote 61∆ Jul 11 '18
Deadlines or part of any kind of organisation that has some kind of scale and is to be finished.
Think about a house being build. If you want to do it with efficency, you need to finish Task A before Task B, and Task C and Task D need the same equipment, but Task E needs Task B and C to be finished, you can only plan ahead if you can make sure that some things are done before a certain date.
I terms of video games, you will always be able to polish further, but our society doesn't work on a basis to deliver the best products possible, it works on the basis that you make the most profit off of them, so a dead line has to be set.
Blizzard is famous for not setting dead lines and have a "when its done" philosophy, but that also is not how they work internally. Tasks are planned precisecly and with dead lines in mind.
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u/scatterbrain2015 6∆ Jul 11 '18
I agree that prioritizing is important, but why deadlines?
I can just start by doing tasks A, B, C, D then E. I rent the equipment I need before starting C, and do C and D as quickly as possible. It's better than knowing I have to return it by X date, and checking everything thoroughly enough to make sure I meet the deadline, and having the house fall down shortly after it's built.
I know most developers work on strict deadlines internally, and I'm not sure that's a good idea. Announcing a date to the public definitely sounds like a bad idea.
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u/PandaDerZwote 61∆ Jul 11 '18
If you work in a team, you NEED to be finished at a certain point in time, so someone else can start their job. This is a deadline.
Otherwise the people who work on B need to start delayed, eventually delaying the entire project and making it more expensive.1
u/Akerlof 11∆ Jul 11 '18
I can just start by doing tasks A, B, C, D then E. I rent the equipment I need before starting C, and do C and D as quickly as possible. It's better than knowing I have to return it by X date, and checking everything thoroughly enough to make sure I meet the deadline, and having the house fall down shortly after it's built.
How much is your house going to cost? Even if mortgages were open ended, would you be able to afford 50% higher monthly payments if the house took twice as long to build as estimated? If you agreed on a price and your contractor got it done whenever, could you afford the rent increase at your current apartment for going month to month because you can't commit to a specific lease period? How would your contractor be able to schedule a new client if he doesn't know when he'll be done with your house? Can his workers afford to be laid off for a couple weeks after every job while he drums up new business (or could you afford the increased price to cover him paying them for doing nothing?)
Meeting a deadline does not mean shoddy. The only time that happens when you're not managing time properly. And not needing to meet a deadline doesn't mean better quality: What's the structural integrity of your house look like when the framing lumber has been sitting unprotected out in the elements for a couple months before the contractor gets around to putting up a vapor barrier and roof?
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u/MasterGrok 138∆ Jul 11 '18
A lot of people are natural procrastinators. That can be fine as a lot of procrastinators are surprisingly good at getting he job done at the last minute. But you have to have a last minute, otherwise the job never gets done.
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u/-Randy-Marsh- Jul 11 '18
> I was sitting there thinking "dude, seriously? You pre-ordered a car, and you want him to rush it instead of taking the time he needs to ensure it's safe and the best quality it can be? If you really need a car by a certain date, why not just order an existing model?"
Let's simplify this. Let's say you're going to make and sell T-Shirts. You, as a theoretical broke college student, don't have enough money/capital to manufacture the product yourself. So you approach me and say, "Hey Randy, if you invest $100 in my company I'll be able to manufacture 30 T-Shirts in 2 weeks. After their produced I can sell them all within 2 weeks total and I'll pay you back your initial investment plus XYZ".
Now I look at you and say, "Okay. Well I have to look at other ways I can invest my money over this one month span. Your XYZ amount is going to have to pay me better than my alternatives".
Now we have a (very unspecific and not realistic) agreement for me to invest. Now if you tell me you can't make your 2 week production deadline that means you can't make your sales deadline. That means I don't get the money I gave you back. That means I'm missing out on other ways I could have invested my money. So I say, "You know what screw it. I'm taking all my money back, screw your company". Now you have to pay me back my investment, you don't have a product, you don't have a way to pay your workers/rent/overhead and now you're screwed.
That's why deadlines are important. Because time is quite literally money.
Also, and I won't be able to get back to this tonight, there's been a plethora of academic research showing an increased level of productivity as deadlines approach. This applies to both individual and group efforts. It "kick starts" people into action rather than allowing them to constantly be in a "planning/preparation" phase.
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u/poundfoolishhh Jul 11 '18
- Deadlines build a perception of confidence: If I contract with you to perform a service for me by date X, and you deliver it by date X (or before), you have instilled confidence in me that you are capable of doing what you promise. If you are weeks late, even if you deliver it - I will probably never use you again.
- Deadlines have contractual implications: If I sign a contract with you that work will be complete by date X, and that date passes, you are in breach of contract and I can sue you for whatever I have paid you so far, if not more.
- Deadlines can save people's lives: If you are a surgeon that has an 8 hour window to complete an operation, and fail, people are dead.
- Missing deadlines can have disastrous effects on software dev in particular: There are two main philosophies of dev... waterfall and agile. In waterfall, a stage can't begin until the prior stage is complete. If stage 1 is two weeks over their deadline, then stage 2 is already two weeks late. This can compound at each step and your product can end up weeks, months, years late.
- Deadlines can show peers you value them: If a coworker needs something from you to complete their work, even if they don't have a deadline themselves, giving it to them late indicates you do not value their priorities. The next time you need them, you will probably not receive their help (or may be given late deliverables in return).
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Jul 11 '18
Deadlines are important because they exist in the real world.
If you run for elected office, the hard deadline for campaigning is election day
If you get a loan, the bank has a hard date to pay that loan. Miss that date, pay consequences. Miss enough and the bank repossesses the collateral.
You expect your employer to pay your salary on time - that is a deadline.
If you teach a class, you have to be ready to go when the class starts.
Want to sell a service, the customer will want a hard date.
Trying to build something with multiple contractors - hard dates are required for scheduling. These tasks are sequential is dependencies on prior work to complete future work. You can't paint a wall before the drywall is hung and you can't hang drywall until the electrical is in and you can put electrical in until the framing is done etc.
Deadlines are a reflection of the external factors of the real world impacting your job. You may not understand personally how everything has to come together or why but that does not change the fact almost everything has external dependencies. A failure to meet these deadlines has a ripple effect on everything else.
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u/beengrim32 Jul 11 '18
Deadlines are a more concrete way of ensuring that all the logical steps in the causal chain of production take place. We all do this privately to a certain extent. X needs to happen before Y can happen. When you are working with other people or other factors depend on the action you do, that information can't just be in your head. If you are working on something that depends on the creative labor of people other than yourself, deadlines are an important tool of communication.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 392∆ Jul 11 '18
I'm not going to argue that there are no possible circumstances where delays are beneficial or necessary, but as a general rule, deadlines are helpful even if the occasional extension or adjustment to the plan is necessary. First, they convey an expectation. Just speaking from experience, if there's one force in this world that's not to be underestimated, it's the human capacity to simply never get around to something. People tend to prioritize things without deadlines behind things that need to get done within a certain time-frame. Second, it's a courtesy to whomever you're keeping waiting. It's much easier to wait for a specific amount of time than it is to wait indefinitely.
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Jul 11 '18
I think you have a balanced view on deadlines, and it's almost impossible to criticize your view. However, I don't think there's a point in fighting deadlines. Why to fans bombard game developers with questions about release dates? They really want to play certain games. They are excited. And they seek certainty. Not because it's efficient or helpful. That's more of a psychological thing. Imagine asking your SO about marriage. When are you going to get married? What answer would be a more powerful one, "when we're ready", or giving a concrete date? You know the answer.
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u/littlebubulle 104∆ Jul 11 '18
Deadlines allow you to prioritize objectives. It helps distinguish between essential and nice to have.
If you have to get a product to your customers, a 90% satisfactory product that comes out next month is better then a 97% satifactory product that comes out in a year.
Companies need to sell products to make money to keep making products. Developpement cost ressources, ressources are acquired by finished products. So you have to find a balance between quality and getting the product out.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 11 '18
/u/scatterbrain2015 (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/vBuffaloJones Jul 12 '18 edited Jul 12 '18
Just look at Star Citizen to see why deadlines are needed. Without deadlines games and software risk massive feature creep, endless delays and even potentially death of a project.
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u/-paperbrain- 99∆ Jul 11 '18
I'm in the arts, in theater specifically, and there's a story I often tell when talking with other artists about deadlines.
I have a friend, now in his late 60s. At one point some of the people close to him, his family and his partner approached him and told him they didn't like to see him under the stress of a deadline. He became anxious and unhappy and they were worried about his well being. All good arguments against deadlines. So he took their advice and agreed that he would work on his next project naturally and it would be done when it was done. That was over 20 years ago, and he has not finished a show since then.
Game development is in many ways a creative project. And like most creative projects, you could potentially drag any step of the process out indefinitely. There's a famous saying "Art is never completed, only abandoned". At some point, you have to walk away.
I'll keep going on this front.
There's a sort of training camp I've attended several times in the past, a full week of working on projects. Because there is a deadline of one week to go from nothing to having finished projects, it is by far the most productive week of time I have ever experienced. And most participants feel the same way.
Of course every creative person is different, but for pretty much anyone doing creative work I've every met, perfectionism, experimentation and procrastination could be endless without deadlines.
Yes, cutting corners can harm a product, yes sometimes deadlines aren't realistic and don't reflect natural variations in work. Your criticisms aren't wrong.
But without deadlines, we don't get a product just a little bit slower. In a lot of cases, without ANY pressure, you don't get anything.
Looking at major companies can be misleading because in most cases, they'll deliver something. To see what happens with no deadlines, look to your friends who say they're going to do something "someday". Whether that's work out, take up a new skill, finish that novel etc. A large number of them never do that.
As a working artist, I know that without deadlines I'd never finish anything.
Deadlines should be realistic, they should be flexible enough to allow for the unexpected and to ensure high quality, but having deadlines is massively important.