Some deadlines improve performance; others merely compress preventable chaos.

Deadlines that focus attention and force decisions are valuable. Deadlines invented arbitrarily produce the same rush without the same benefit, and they mostly compress work that could have been done calmly into a period where mistakes become likely. The difference is whether the date means anything.

Ask of your next deadline where it came from and what happens if it moves. Real ones are worth respecting. Invented ones are worth renegotiating rather than surviving.