My Happiness Project - How Do You Do Assignments?

It's Happiness Monday! I love My Happiness Project, where I decided to spend a year "finding" happiness with the help of Gretchen Rubin and her awesome book. Check out her website for more information. And buy the book! It's never too late to start your own Happiness Project.

Do you do projects by assignment or deadline? 

By assignment - when you learn you need to do something, do you try to do it closer to the time you learn about the assignment? 

OR

By deadline - do you look at the day or time an assignment is due and start doing it closer to that deadline?

For example, let's say you get something assigned to you today on April 26th, with the knowledge that its due date is May 7th.  Do you start working on it right away, today, or do you wait until next week, maybe Wednesday, saying "I have plenty of time to get this done?"

As a general rule, I am a "by assignment" kind of gal.  If it's assigned today, I want to get started today.  I want to have time to devote to the project, leave it for a few days, then maybe come back to it in the couple of days before it's due and look at it again with "fresh eyes."  I try to do that with my blog posts.  I try to write them a couple of days in advance to give myself time to come back to them and revise.  I don't like to just write, glance over, then hit "publish post."

This makes me quite happy. 

What can make me unhappy is when I have no choice but to operate by deadline.  It stresses me out.  I feel like the opportunity to make mistakes is much higher when I'm operating close to a deadline.  And I feel like I'm a "day late and a dollar short" when operating by deadline. 

What kind of person are you?  Do you operate by assignment or deadline?  And why does that work or not work for you? 

Happy Monday!