I am very deadline-oriented and — knock wood — nearly always have met any final project deadline. But most significant projects require at least some interim deadlines or milestones in order to ensure that good results are reached by the final/official deadline.
In large organizations, such planning/scheduling is often a matter of course. But in small work environments, a final deadline may be the only stated project milestone.
In such circumstances — in other words, when I’m given a work project with only a final deadline — I divide the project into subparts, set my own interim deadlines, and then “publicly” announce them to those I’m working with (even for subparts of the project that only I will be reviewing or using).
The reason for this is because I’ve found that “public commitment” is a great way to ensure that I meet purely internal deadlines.
Put another way, it’s far easier for me to let a deadline slip if I’m the only one who knows about it. Thus, to keep myself accountable to myself I try to always announce the internal deadlines that I have set.
Now, all that said, I often miss one or more internal deadlines for a project — even when publicly announced — but I tend not to miss them by very much. And the fact that I at least nearly meet those deadlines ensures that the final deadline is met with as good of results as possible.
Finally, and just as importantly, this technique is also very effective for purely personal projects. As above, divide them into subparts, set deadlines for your intermediate milestones; and then announce those deadlines publicly, such as to your spouse or significant other or to a friend or colleague. Although you won’t be “officially” accountable to them (either for the purely personal interim deadline or the final deadline you have, or have set, for yourself), I think you will find that you become more accountable to yourself than you otherwise might!
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