Don't like deadlines? Don't be a journalist.
There is no easy way around them.
Indeed, learn to love them.
In more cases than not, having to deal with them will make you a better writer.
I always advise my students that rather than avoid deadlines they should create artificial time constraints.
In short, make your own ones.
If you're not given a deadline set yourself one.
In doing any of my practical exercises, give yourself two hours, or just an hour.
Put yourself to the test.
Imagine you are in a newsroom.
It will happen.
You will surprise yourself.
The joy of the artificial deadline.
You are that "downtable" or junior reporter with the makings of the "splash", which we call the main front page story on first page.
That's the big one.
Make the story work but only give yourself 90 minutes.
You can do it! I work on a Sunday newspaper with one deadline a week.
The very nature of a weekly means that the pressure will build by the end of the week.
It is inescapable.
They are ways you can deal with it if you work on a periodical.
I create my own deadlines as the week goes.
Otherwise I would be writing 2000 words on a Saturday.
The quality would suffer.
I can assure you that in the work environment, the presses, as well call them, will go off at the same time every week, and the radio news bulletin will be read at the same time.
They are unavoidable.
Of course online journalism has changed the notion of the deadline.
They seem to have disappeared.
But have they? If I'm on a job with web reporters they will simply race to file their copy as soon as possible.
For them the deadline is now.
Get used to it.
If you sense that you are a person who finds pressure something difficult to cope with, put yourself to the test.
You will get better.
Finally, never forget that the most important thing about journalism is the deadline.
Fail to make this deadline; fail to have a story.
Have no illusions about this.
If your story, however good, makes the "news list" but not the deadline, self-evidently it is sunk.
Don't be that journalist.
My courses offer advice on how to cope with deadlines.
Sign up to my 2 free courses on Journalism Tutor, which include the full X Factor press conference from last year.
Write a story from the news conference and submit it to Journalism Tutor.
We're looking forward to hearing from you.