It has been said that 75% of all modern technology was perfected within 48 hours of a trade show. Why? The trade show is a perfect example of a deadline; products simply must be ready because stakes are high.

Even though they tend to be unpleasant, they can be turned to your advantage. How? By using them to motivate yourself to get things accomplished! Here are some examples of how I have purposely set deadlines for myself in order to insure that I get things done.

As I learned about speaking business, it became apparent that it was critical that I write articles such as this one. They can be used in a number of ways to further my career, but I knew that they would never get written unless I had deadlines. When John Patrick approached me to write this column in Alpenhorn, I was thrilled; not only because I would have opportunity to be printed in his paper, but because I knew that deadlines would get me to actually write these articles!

I'll tell you why I am so frustrated in two simple words - The Internet. I frequently go to Internet to find information, but once I get there I just don't know where to start.

Search engines use to work really well when I wanted to find information on a topic. But these days it's very likely that you will get over a million results when you search for information on any given topic. I've even tried narrowing my search to no avail. Talk about frustrating!

Checking my email is no less frustrating than searching for information. Spam seems to be king of Internet. I receive email from people and places I've never heard of before. I've tried getting new email accounts but spam seems to follow me wherever I go. Talk about frustrating!

Then there are those annoying pop-up and pop-under windows that seem to appear out of nowhere. Who came up with that idea anyway? Talk about frustrating! Pop-ups do a wonderful job of diverting my attention away from information I went to website to look for.

Oh. And of course there are those websites that have words and pictures dancing around to sound of my favorite tunes. Not! It's a shame that in time it takes for those pages to load, I can surf to five other sites.