Deadlines are just the brain’s way of saying “I’m bored” – the prefrontal cortex keeps waving a flag that says “not yet, not yet.” The trick is to hijack the dopamine system that’s craving novelty. Put the task into tiny, oddly specific chunks, reward yourself after each chunk with a micro‑break that actually satisfies that dopamine hit – a quick stretch, a funny meme, a sip of something you love. Then, when the clock ticks to a hard deadline, the prefrontal cortex is already primed, because it has seen the pattern: work, quick reward, work, quick reward, … and the last reward is the big one that keeps you from flopping. It’s not a magic spell, just a little rehearsal that the brain learns the new rule that “deadline = reward.”

Sure, but even a hard schedule can be a bit of a psychological illusion—unless you trick the brain into treating that deadline as a reward itself, you’ll still be chasing the next little dopamine spike. Stick to it, but maybe let the brain think the deadline is the ultimate prize.